Monkeytennis

Love that luck analogy, I’ll be using that.

When I’m told I’ve been lucky, it’s sometimes that I’ve just been really deliberate and considered in my actions.

And within 12 hours, have forgotten 90%

Coddling has the negative connotation - to consistently overprotect. Occasional spoiling is an entirely different and good thing.

You missed my point. I’m ignoring nothing, I’m suggesting OP seek out men who will be supportive, because they’re not hard to find.

I’m certain I could find studies as proof, but don’t we all already know this to be true?

Plenty of men can deal with this, and plenty of women can’t. It’s not helpful to see this as a gender thing, you’ll only feel more alienated. You might want to seek out some new social connections?

I’ve been though divorce recently and despite being very amicable, it’s caused me to reset - some things broke, but being more emotionally open has been one of the good things. I’m still pretty reserved but a few things are different:

• I care a lot less about conforming to “ideals” or how anyone judges me. That means I no longer feel the fear and second guess everything I say.
• When appropriate, I ask people - especially other men - how they’re doing and gently push for a genuine answer. No one’s reacted negatively to that, so far.
• With my kids, I simply do the opposite to my father. I tell them I love them, I take an interest in them, and I take their feelings seriously. I don’t coddle them, but I want them to feel secure and confident in talking to me. They’re still young, so we’ll see.
• During work 1:1s, I take a genuine interest in people, most will subtly drop hints that they had a bad weekend or are feeling tired or stressed. I used to gloss over that, now I’ll ask about it and say I’m happy to listen. A surprising number will go on to share, with the bonus that it builds trust.
• If someone asks how I am, I won’t lay it all out for them, but I’ll be honest. Most people empathise and tell you they’ve been through similar. It’s never been awkward, and I’ve found out nearly everyone I know is pretty anxious and is going through difficult stuff.

As an aside, I never watched much porn because I found it so cold and alienating. It’s interesting that you found the opposite. Anyway, I’ll stop there and wish you well!

Fair enough, I’ve been in those situations, that can be tough

Don’t you think most people need to understand shit to move on? If you just ask urgent questions, then take time to digest the meeting and ask those insightful followups in a team chat, it filters out the 75% of the crap you were going to say.

Having a reputation as the guy who prolongs meetings with 25% dumb questions and 25% jokes is not a good thing.

After a couple of bad questions, I’ll either excuse myself, suggest we carry on separately, or (ideally) ask to be sent a list, for me to ignore at my leisure.

Sorry Greg, we’re not here to answer your dumbass questions, or indulge your hypothetical edge cases.

See, there’s a huge different for me between “people” and “my people” - they can be two separate groups of strangers, but I can tell them apart in seconds.

In the rare times I want to socialise, my quest is to minimise contact with the former and maximize the latter.

Am I missing something, or would basically any old smartphone work in place of this? I have a Pixel which sits in a cradle and takes care of anything I’d use this for. I guess a physical button or dial might be nice, but I have a volume dial on the car dash.

Seems plainly obvious that it’ll require a sub. It’s a Spotify box.

It’s the least offensive type of advertising I see day to day. I couldn’t care less how my listening data is shared, and I don’t understand the zero tolerance some people have for adverts - it’s not all bad.

If they ramp up the adverts, people will vote with their feet.

Tell us what you end up cooking!

I’m frying a burger patty, and then some diced potato which I’ll heavily spice with paprika, chillies, cumin, etc, and fry once the patty is done. Bit random, but I’m tired and want some flavour.

I’ve been cutting my own for years, never considered using a taper guard. Hmm.

I took Mirtazapine for a while last year, just the sleep and appetite helped a lot. I’ve considered asking about something else, since my mood and anxiety isn’t great, but I don’t know.

Changing career paths in my 30s (less stress, more money), getting a divorce (not staying in an unhealthy relationship), having kids (gives me a lot of purpose), paying down my mortgage (financial freedom)

What’ve been the most helpful changes you’ve made? I know it all depends on the person, but I’m interested.

It’s been amazing value for me - I’d spent a decade away from video games outside of Nintendo, so I had a giant backlog - I’ve played over 100 in the last 12 months on my Series X.

However, I’m noticing diminishing returns, since I’m spending a lot of time on games like Mass Effect, which are cheap to buy. There’s also a lot of games in genres I don’t like e.g JRPG, fighting, sports, and also plainly bad games.

The balance of good new games vs ones leaving the service is pretty poor, too. If I wasn’t locked into another year, I’d drop it for a while.

TLDR - look at the catalogue, work out how much it would cost to buy the games you’d play, and then decide.

❤️