Aww, thank you! I really hope I didn’t come off as too critical of you, because my frustration is at the social standards that dictate how people live their lives, but I am not always the most eloquent in that.

I remember this thread sometimes. I hope you’re doing well.

I think part of the side effect here is that you no longer have to be close to your family and you get to make difference choices, because we have mobility and individuality now more than ever before. I live on a different continent from my family, and I am honestly a bit relieved to not be roped into babysitting and…

I just saw your longer description - my god, I don’t know how you can possibly process all that.

That is so fucking awful. I can’t imagine the tailspin that’d send me into, no less with a child present who is probably going through their own crisis about it.

I cannot understand where you people live where there isn’t a crushing expectation of monogamy and marriage. I assume in a fairly liberal, large city, because I am decidedly not monogamous (and like you, I can no more force myself into monogamy/monoamory than you can force yourself into polyamory), and I have gotten…

I am currently weaning off my SSRI to start a different one that hopefully will not make me gain crazy amounts of weight, and I am just emotionally unhinged right now.

Yes, this. More and more, people are pushing back against the “date-marry-buy house-have kids” narrative. People might still want these things, but perhaps in a different order, or not all of them, or want to substitute in one thing for another. And I think that’s great! The same path won’t make everyone happy,…

You really are in a very unusual bubble :) I’ve never really been monogamous, and everywhere I’ve ever lived has pushed back on that. I constantly have to field questions about it (I am rather private about my dating/romantic/sex life, but people put things together), and have people giggle about it and talk about…

I’m also quite introverted, and the reason that multiple relationships works for me is that I don’t have a “primary” or a traditional “boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship and I really don’t enjoy having someone around all the time. I spend the majority of time alone (and I live alone, save for my dog), and we all just…

I’m more or less the same. I have multiple FWB-esque relationships, and that’s just how I like it. They’re my good and close friends - we talk often, we hang out with or without sex, I live alone (well, with my dog), and we do not plan our lives around each other. I like to ask their opinions, because they are…

Enjoy those excitement attacks! Do you have social excitement disorder? This renaming stuff definitely makes it so! I’m so EXCITED ABOUT IT

When I was a kid, I dreamed of all the ways I’d bring about world peace, because those old guys just didn’t have my fresh insight! I remember being about six and thinking smugly, “Sometimes, it takes the mind of a child to really see the truth,” and believing that I was better than all those experts. I cringe now,…

I was reading this thread in a waiting room and snort-cackled at this :D I bet everyone wishes they, too, were in on the joke!

Yeah, joking with the immigration officer is a really terrible idea. They, like any person who works with the public, have to listen to the same terrible “jokes” over and over, and in some cases, are legally required to follow up on certain things, so even a joke can land you in pretty hot water.

I think that with the streak of hate crimes in the U.S., especially against Muslim (and Jewish, but that’s not quite as relevant here) people, people fear that it’s murder, not suicide.

This is sadly not my joke, but it did ring a bell with me.

I agree with you. First off, I have vaginismus, so there is no PIV in my life. I do not wish to treat it or change it, and it will remain as it is (so no advice wanted for it) :) This has not made people respect me more, though it has helped to weed out people who just want sex and made it a bit easier to figure…

I do have sympathy for Ivanka when she was a child. Children don’t choose their parents, and certainly, it seems like Donald was a kind of absent/shitty father. There seems to have been a huge push on image, like you said, and that can’t feel too great. Kids can’t be expected to carry the public burden of the…

Not to mention, not everywhere is an non-chalant about LGBTQAI issues as, say, San Francisco. There are still many places where being non-straight (and non-cis isn’t even a glimmer on the horizon) is a real fear of retribution, sometimes in the form of violence.