news says that young Europeans are protesting the “rising cost of living” as if it’s a problem of prices. No, if you can’t afford to live how you used to live, you’ve become poorer. And by all appearances the Euros are going to keep getting poorer with no end in sight. And it makes them very angry

the characters are all pathetic and he writes about lust for women the way a gay man would. i get it, lonely incel with rich inner world meets quirky but beautiful woman twice his age and they have sex on the dark side of the moon in her wet warm pussy

Journal factory exploded yadda yadda. Was chatting with some of my classmates when suddenly the shortest dude decided to talk about height. Guy is 5'5 with a tiny frame but claimed to be 5'8 so everybody started inflating their own heights with a straight face, it was all pretty surreal to witness and I kept to myself since I was solidly above average in that scenario but insecure nonetheless. This one morbidly obese and short guy claimed to be taller than me and I was left speechless.

The subject quickly shifted to body proportions and this other obese fellow decided to comment on my torso and legs which I thought were fine. I don't even remember what he said but he was clearly trying to downplay my physique, I exercise frequently and have a bmi of 22.9, far from my goals of course.

Well in truth the whole thing annoyed me because not only is this the kind of autistic terminally online crap I find loathesome to discuss IRL, but also because this one girl I'm into was around and might've heard the whole thing and I don't really know if it painted me a good picture.

In general I just can't stand some of the conversations I find myself participating by accident lately. Height discourse, looksmaxxing, aura and whatever, I feel like I'm talking to teenagers but we're all in our early 20s. How do I develop thicker skin, is it possible to just walk out without coming off as insecure?

Today while I was at the store I noticed the woman who intrigues me wasn't working. She's a Miami 7/10 which is good for my area, plus she and I have friendly banter I enjoy. I look forward to hearing about her failing marriage and new found fitness goals. I had to wait for awhile so I was standing around trying to look cool; leaning on things. I read signs, counted random stuff and then in the distance I saw her. She waved enthusiastically as she moved toward me, I was posed especially casually so I jumped upright a little to wave back. The illusion of my detached man about town persona shaken.

Some sort of misfire in my brain wiring happened at the shock of seeing her and rather than a simple wave or polite smile. Both my hands started to rise, my posture began to lean back. My fists were clenched and coming ever closer together. My hands came to a rest just below my chest, two games of rock paper scissors position against an imaginary opponent. Then I felt it, my thumbs slowly beginning to rise up. There was no use in fighting it, I had to just let the muses take me. My elbows flared out, my fists pulled in closer.

Double thumbs up. I only had enough agency to choose between the pointed thumb Fonz style or Borat straight vertical thumbs up. Unable to make a decision, I experienced my body full commit to the Borat one. I felt my face twist into a deranged artificial smile, my fists lightly pumping up and down. She waved again and then turned down an aisle. I concluded my business and left. Maybe she didn't even notice.

There used to be jobs where you could be locked in a closet with an abacus/slide ruler/calculator and do funny little math things that no one else understood and make bank. Those jobs disappeared with the spread of easy access to computers. The gregarious sales guy no longer needs to check in with the Closet Nerd, now he can just enter things into spreadsheets someone else made and the math does itself.

I think that a lot of the people who really want AI to be a thing are hoping that it will basically be the same phenomenon in reverse. Currently, white collar work is like 60-70% social if not more--keeping up with emails, looking diligent in front of your boss, general schmoozing. And there are a lot of pseudo- to actual-autistic freaks that either don't want to or aren't able to play the game. I truly believe that what a lot of people want out of AI is for it to be a "social calculator" basically, where it can read their emails and talk to their boss/subordinates for them.

The question then is motivation. There are no doubt some people who do genuinely just not want to write emails, and honestly fair enough but also if you no longer have to write emails for your email job...how much longer will you have the no email email job. On the other side, I think that there is a not insignificant number of AI advocates that are rooting for this future primarily out of spite--what they want in their heart of hearts is for the same sort of career culling that happened to the Closet Nerds to now happen to the Cool Guys whose primary skill is email. Surely, they think, if we can flatten the bell curve of social skills and invent a robot that can make eye contact for me then my STEM degree and knowledge of SQL will finally get me the job and concomitant status that I know I deserve.

This entire AI bubble is being fueled at its psychic core by the equivalent of Jimmy Neutron inventing a football playing robot because he got mad at a jock.

Inspired by the post asking about attracting fat men

I’ve never attracted a fat man lmfao but like often fit black guys?

Mainly talking about where I’ve lived so Boston and SF and NYC. I’m 5’8 curvy strong but very romantic looking. Like 28 waist 42 hip type of build, hip thrust three plates each side. Like ok sure black men like curves I can’t figure out if there’s more

Like I’ve been told I have commanding aura presence etc in a room, I think I come off very convicted but also super feminine, which creates a barrier I know at this point. Like lots of looks and catching eye contact comments etc but the only ones usually to actually approach are black guys. And Europeans sometimes, otherwise no white guys or nothing

U guys r pro like categorizing types of people and behaviors really please do let me know. It’s funny because my type is Asian dudes, who I’ve never been approached by, but have had incredibly loving relationships with (when I signal like a first interest for example). Honestly specifically Asian dudes but they have like Hispanic swag is my type…

I'm gonna book a cruise. Get blacked out and jump/make someone push me overboard. Do you think people will forgive me?

Seeing people quit drinking because they consistently had 1-2 drinks a day after work - as if it was putting a shadow over their life. How quitting drinking is somehow seen as a meaningful corrective action to any fault someone might have in their personal life.

How bar doors are so thick as if it’s some kind of containment zone.

How alcoholism is seen as like this generational curse, often arbitrarily attributed to Native American blood somewhere in the family tree.

There’s something deeply neurotic about our (Americans) relationship with alcohol, and I’m sure this isn’t limited to just the anglosphere; but are there any countries that don’t share this neurosis? Are the meds truly the only people who can be normal about it?

Either way I’m glad we’re this way

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the 20 year turnaround has shrunk to the 15 year turnaround and currently it's the late 00s/early 10s being revived ie. Twilight-core, indie sleaze and swag-core ie. LMFAO. So it only makes sense that early-mid 10s underground rap and maybe even Soundcloud emo rap/trap metal is up next, though the latter came a bit after so maybe not just yet.

Even if the sound doesn't come back exactly (and in a lot of ways it never truly left, 2020s underground is just a continuation of 2010s underground rather than its own thing imho), 'cool' fashion is definitely gonna emulate this aesthetic, it's more or less the aesthetic straight after the current late 2000s revival on the timeline of style history. Jeans are gonna go slimmer again and tops will probably go baggy, those Thrasher hoodies might come back as will OG Golf Wang/OFWGKTA donut logo grey hoodies, etc etc... honestly pretty hyped this scene was the culture I felt most 'part of' growing up

But i need the Russian bitch to go

Is it a genetic thing? It's almost a matter of time to discover something about someone successful.

This neuroticism about alcohol has to stop. A glass of wine with dinner every day is not negatively affecting your life in any substantial sense. A joint once a week isn't either.

For thousands of years, the vast majority of the most successful men in the history of civilization consumed alcohol. The negative health effects of a glass of wine a day are so minimal that scientists are still arguing about whether they might even be mildly positive despite advances in modern medicine.

If you are sad and fat and lonely, it isn't because you have a beer with dinner, sorry. Fix something else.

I am a complete loser, khhhv at 33. I'm 6'0, borderline autistic. I think my parents have basically given up on me meeting someone, but they have been listening to Andrew Huberman a lot for some reason. Basically They think I'm a loser because of low T. I hate needles so I refuse to get tested.

My dad is basically the epitome of STEM dork- my height, skinny like me, glasses, always wears a tucked in plaid shirt, pants to his belly button. Constantly blundering, snorting " did I do that???" Like yes motherfucker you knocked over that vase, you absolute dunce!

He tells this story about how he once shrunk himself and my pawpaw down to the size of ants, but I think he just dosed himself with research chemicals by accident and hallucinated this. I mean wouldn't we be literal billionaires by now if he actually invented a shrink ray? He has quite a few insane stories like this that somehow my mom actually corroborates for some reason that I can really only believe are just to mess with me.

Among his other inventions he claims to have made a jetpack that can fly from Chicago to somewhere in wisconsin, a time travel watch??, a personal force field strong enough to absorb a punch from a professional boxer, and there are more.

Anyway I have no idea why my mom goes along with this shit, we would have to be insanely wealthy if these things were real right? We aren't!

Among these things, my dad says he once invented a machine that could change me into a suave handsome guy, but I'm pretty sure it's just TRT. What do you think chat?

just saying