I’m not Indian, but I’ve got a few Indian friends and have attended a few Indian weddings as well. From what I’ve seen, there’s no “traditional” gift - most of the gifts I’ve seen are something which would be useful for the couple or their house, eg a dinner set, clothes, jewelery, maybe even a gadget or appliance. But this really depends on the couple - younger couples these days may explicitly say no to any physical gifts (because they may just end up becoming clutter) and would prefer accepting cash or gift cards instead. So if you’re close to your friend, I’d say ask them upfront what sort of gift they would prefer or if there’s any type of gift they wouldn’t want - and that should help you narrow it down. Beware that they may say not to worry about bringing a gift and just your presence alone would be a gift (I’ve heard this dialog a few times…), but regardless, you shouldn’t back down, and insist that you will gift them something irrespective of what they say, so this should make them back down if they’re being stubborn. :)

As someone else said, a Polish gift might be a good idea - doesn’t have to be a “useful” thing, but something symbolic to remember you would be nice.

Same here, never got around to cursing, just not in my vocabulary.

I’m a decade older than you and ask myself the same question. In fact, I’ve never even been in a proper romantic relationship. The closest I’ve gotten to is holding hands, but we never even kissed.

In saying that, I do fine for the most part, and live a normal life. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship, but trying to find someone has been next to impossible and stressful, so I tend to just avoid the topic. It does get a bit annoying though when you’re the only single person and you go to a meetup or something and everyone else is coupled up or has a partner. Even more annoying when I hear about people in poly relationships… I’m like… mf I’m struggling to get even ONE person and you have two or three partners, wtf‽

In all seriousness though, I don’t think I really mind bring single, but practically speaking, it sucks because of the higher living costs. We need more affordable housing made for single folks and we need the government to treat singles with the same rights/perks as married folks.

No.

Kinda related for me, is keeping in touch / communication / or just talking in general. It’s the reason why I don’t have any friends left, and that’s because I can’t be bothered to stay in touch with them (and I hate social media).

At the same time, I’d like to have some friends to go watch movies with, or go to a restaurant etc. I almost stopped going to the cinemas after I lost touch with my old work friends.

I wish I could have just casual, activity-based friends so there’s no commitment to keep a relationship going and you just meet up for an activity when you feel like it with no expectation of any follow up communications or getting involved in their lives.

#Sync

Because nothing compares to it really. The polish, the UI, the UX, plus the developer ljdawson is an awesome bloke who listens to his users, as he’s shown time and again. So, I’m happy to support a dev like that.

"So when are you going to buy a car / house / get married / have kids? "

All of which I’m not interested in. Just leave me be and let me do my own thing. Being single, free of debt, and enjoying life shouldn’t be seen as an abnormal thing.

Missed opportunity on your username!

Hah, it’s the opposite for me - I grab some very warm water.

“Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer, which argues against speciesism and the ethical treatment of animals, as well as “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Foer, which delves into the moral complexities of eating animals and factory farming. Both these books have convinced me to go vegan. I’ve been vegan for a decade now and don’t regret it one bit.

As a side effect, I’ve also become more health conscious, because a strict vegan diet doesn’t provide everything, so I did a lot of research into what I’m eating, what my body needs (and doesn’t need) etc. As a result I feel like my health has improved a lot - my hairloss has mostly stopped, my complexion has improved, also I used to have a skin condition which is now under control, no depression episodes, and I rarely fall sick.

It’s been an ongoing process of learning though. Most recently I’ve found out about Choline, which has a critical role in neurotransmitter function and affects your mood, and thankfully I found that my diet already has enough Choline in it, so it wasn’t a worry or anything. But it’s always interesting knowing what’s in what your eating, things your body needs etc.

Not everyone in IT needs to fix tickets or work in a high-stress environment. In one of my previous roles, I was a projects engineer, and I was basically given a bunch of projects to work on (like there was a small python-based project - they needed to automate something; then there was one to get them into a hybrid cloud setup; another project to upgrade something and so on). I didn’t really have any break-fix tickets to work on, although I was occasionally asked if I could help, when there was some spare time or if it was something high-level the ops guys couldn’t fix. Basically a total chill job, I was free to allocate time on my projects as I saw fit, no hard deadlines, no SLAs to meet, and the best part - no users to deal with.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. To get here, I had to do those grunt roles first, those stressful jobs with tickets that needed to be fixed in minutes, dealing with angry users and stuff. But thankfully my career has progressed past that stage now.