self_made_human's profile

self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

Actually, yes. It's a fork of the rdrama code base, with our own bespoke additions. Open the side panel to view the source code on git, though I don't recall the license used right now.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

It's a drop down panel that has a list of every notable mod action, both good and bad. Warnings, bans, AAQCs, they all go in there. Per user, as you'd expect. We can add additional commentary in the free form text entry section.

Far superior to Reddit's implementation of mod tools. I suppose that's inevitable when the primary dev also owns and runs the site, and has a vested interest in his jannies not committing sudoku with our occasionally contentious userbase.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

I expect it's somewhat less litigious than the US, though of course it still keeps people up at night.

I've read that the SSRI and increased suicide risk is a real phenomenon, when they start working enough to overcome the lethargy and apathy, which lets users finally find the energy to apply those lovely suicidal thoughts lurking in their heads. Not that I've seen that stop anyone prescribing them, there's nothing better for the majority. Maybe jump to ECT if the depression is severe enough/psychotic?

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

Excellent! Using the knowledge we just discussed, which PRNs would you administer to yourself for that aggression???

Haloperidol 😌

Then again, maybe I have PTSD from exams, and therapy (CBT, if memory serves) is first line in the UK.

B-52 is the medical slang for that PRN regimen, don't see people abusing it (if that's what you meant by that comment).

Ah, the innocence. While I'm more familiar with the bomber aircraft with that designation, you really need to visit /r/drugs, sort by top all time, and just see the RIDICULOUS things people do with or on benadryl. Who thought people could get addicted to a bad time?

Medical beer works great! We need to bring it back.

Especially for us doctors. Sadly, the glory days of the NHS when doctors smoked cigars in their chambers and they had a bar in the doctor's mess were over before I was born.

On paper you have a risk of increased adversed events (most notably respiratory depression) when those two agents are mingled.

What ChatGPT won't tell you is that is likely not real and just a recommendation generated by an abundance of caution. Origin was probably adverse events in people with comorbid substance use, including alcohol.

Hmm.. A lack of evidence based practice? In medicine? Never imagined that was a thing.

I'd be rather surprised to see respiratory depression on that combination, unless they were the kind more fit for the ICU, but I'm just a baby doctor and I'm here to learn.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

I'm not that lazy so I asked GPT-4:

A senior doctor likely provided this advice based on several important considerations regarding the safety and effectiveness of treating acute agitation in patients with psychosis:

Effectiveness of Current Medication:
- If a patient is already on a medication that is working well (like olanzapine, which is Zyprexa), it often makes sense to increase the dose of that medication for breakthrough agitation. This approach minimizes the introduction of new medications and potential drug interactions.
Drug Interactions:
- Mixing intramuscular (IM) olanzapine with benzodiazepines can pose significant risks. One of the main concerns is the potential for additive central nervous system (CNS) depression, leading to profound sedation, respiratory depression, and potentially life-threatening consequences.
Safety Concerns with IM Administration:
- IM olanzapine and benzodiazepines, when used together, have been associated with severe adverse effects, including respiratory depression and cardiovascular instability. This combination can lead to excessive sedation, increasing the risk of aspiration, and can complicate the clinical management of the patient.
Clinical Guidelines and Best Practices:
- Many clinical guidelines and pharmaceutical recommendations explicitly advise against the concurrent use of IM olanzapine and IM benzodiazepines due to these safety risks. These guidelines are based on evidence and case reports of adverse outcomes.
Minimizing Polypharmacy:
- Increasing the dose of an already effective medication helps avoid polypharmacy, which can complicate treatment plans, increase the risk of drug interactions, and make it harder to determine which medication is responsible for any side effects.

In summary, the senior doctor's advice is grounded in clinical safety, evidence-based practice, and the principle of minimizing harm while effectively managing acute agitation. By using more of a medication that is already working, like Zyprexa (olanzapine), and avoiding the combination of IM olanzapine with benzodiazepines, the approach aims to optimize patient outcomes while reducing the risk of serious adverse effects.

I suppose that's the gist of it?

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

It's a good thing I took my Ritalin and have a psych textbook open, or I'd have permabanned for the aggressive attack with education at a vulnerable juncture /s

Thank you, while you Americans have an abominable addiction to brand names, I can understand that those are principles that'll come in handy.

Do not mix IM Zyprexa with benzos however.

I can Google that, but you're in a teaching mood, so might I know why from the horse's mouth?

Unrelated question to check reading comprehension (this is a joke). Do they use hospital prescribed alcohol to manage withdrawal in India? It's so stupidly effective and simple and I don't know why we don't do it more anymore.

Never seen it happen, and I've been here longer than I'd like. It's the usual benzos to cover the acute withdrawal, and it matches up with NICE guidance to boot.

Go assess the patient (skip if the bandwidth isn't there, admittedly). Nursing and ancillary staff are seldom reliable narrators for if a patient needs meds. Bonus points if you can learn which staff and teams are reliable for this. Sometimes you can save everyone trouble by throwing a pissed off person a sandwich. Also be aware of the risks of sedating someone you need to interview or examine later, can easily cause downstream workflow problems especially if it's a hospital setting and you are pulling in consultants.

Good stuff. I'm taking notes, albeit with the cafeteria being the way it is in the NHS, I might be tempted to steal the sandwich. Certainly not paying for one out of pocket, do I look like I make US money haha. I do prefer practical and common sense interventions where possible, Scott's story about the lady with OCD and hairdryer stuck with me.

Haldol/Ativan/Benadryl (B-52! If you've never heard the term) works well and is popular for a damn good reason. It's fine as a default.

More from hanging out in /r/drugs to watch in sheer awe at the people who choose to abuse deliriants, in the case of Benadryl, but Haldol? That's good old haloperidol and I love it like me mum.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

They bear almost no medicolegal responsibility, as long as they do their job, which is being largely useless. Seriously, if you, as a random doctor on the ward, ever get called over while harried to death in the middle of your shift and they ask you to sign off on their suggestions, then it's all on your head if something goes south. And if you refuse, well, you better be ready to face the ire of your seniors, who'll tell you to be a team player.

Fucking, hell they make more money than I do for my first year as a CT1 trainee. Matching my salary next year to boot. Maybe a quarter the time in education, exams where it's ridiculously difficult to flunk, and then they rake in the big bucks and have stable postings without rotational training and can coast until they often end up poached into managerial positions that were once expected to be done by doctors.

It might be a clown world where you're at, but here, the inmates are running the asylum. The UK has a massive shortfall of actual training positions, so it's both a miracle I made it on my first go, and people who don't are SOL till next year around while yet more medical students are pumped out. (I note the conflict of interest as an IMG, but I don't care, they have it easy compared to the shit I go through, and if they want to protest the erosion of pay and scope creep, I'm with them in the picket line)

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

I'm ever more grateful thay a quick poke with haloperidol and lorazepam solves most of my "emergencies".

Ah, truly the specialty for me.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

I used to like Holmes a lot more till I realized that Doyle was being a lazy bastard and cheating. I mean, that's a bit harsh given the standards of his time but the point still stands.

Deductions and clever reasoning are fun, but the kinds Holmes regularly makes are only true by author fiat. That's not how Bayesian reasoning (or reasoning in general) works. Sometimes the reason the dog didn't bark in the night was because it was constipated and really had to take a shit. The sheer confidence with which he just takes a look at a whole bunch of random phenomena which could very well have other reasonable explanations and zeroes in on the right one.. That's not the right way to model someone brilliant, even superhumanly so.

A good mystery novel, IMHO, is one where enough of the pieces are laid out in clear sight, and an astute reader can make the same deductions as the protagonists can. That's never been how it worked in Holmes. Sure, plot twists and aha moments can be entertaining, but the mechanistic underpinnings aren't there.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 6d ago

Look, I completely understand that you're unhappy with what @TitaniumButterfly said, and understandably so. He's been warned by @Amadan, and presuming he doesn't clean up his act, or at least say such things in a less maximally inflammatory manner, he's probably going to end up banned.

However, your own response, especially submitted as a top level comment in this thread, doesn't fly either. I'm not going to put anything on your mod record, since you're new and justifiably incensed, but at the very least, you need to put more effort into a rebuttal. Yes, I'm aware of how weird that sounds.

If you'd just stated this as a reply, I probably wouldn't have bothered to respond or put on the mod hat, but once someone has been modded for their actions, you should leave it at that and not performatively call them out to make a rhetorical point. After all, to make a very lukewarm defense of them, they went into a great deal of explaining as to why they hold the view that they do.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 7d ago

In India, the few private hospitals that do hire NPs use them for one purpose only, they're usually trained to do procedures in the ICU, I'd say usually under doctor supervision, but I was a Medical Officer fresh out from an internship and my presence was superfluous. At least they never dared to take training opportunities away from actual CCM residents or registrars, if they wanted to do something, they got a crack at it.

If you think the US is bad about mid-level scope creep, wait till you hear about the UK.

There, NPs and PAs are both just about as useless as there, but have been bulldozed in by the government because they're far cheaper in the long run than an actual doctor, you know, the kind that expects career progression and also has the temerity to run away for greener pastures when fucked with.

They can't prescribe, nor order most investigations, and anything they do has to be be double checked by a harried doctor. Thankfully, the movement to curtail their expansion has been taking off hard, with doctors both working to rule (Oh, as a PA you report only to my consultant? Sorry, I'm snowed in, I can't sign off on a patient I haven't personally reviewed, please go badger the boss, they'll be very happy about it).

In fact, new guidance on the level of autonomy they possess, especially in GP, makes it so that they're effectively redundant in any practice, so the latter are now begrudgingly forced to accept that actual GPs are non-negotiable.

Add in scandals over them grossly overstepping their remit, and fucking up cases that would be obvious to any semi-competent doctor, such as dismissing obvious MIs with good old PPIs and a paracetamol..

It's all exacerbated by rotational training, with consultants unwilling to invest effort in mentoring and training their juniors who are going to fuck off to a new hospital, whereas they could at least teach the rote mechanical skills to a NP/PA who'll be working under them for their whole career.

What's doubly farcical is that they're paid more than FY1 and FY2 doctors, who are both more competent, and in the latter case, actually capable of ordering followup investigations for whatever they suspect is the case.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 8d ago

Maybe go on a mostly-chaste date or three, just for fun, if she's on the same page? Have fun, get some practice, go to a show, overact romantic with a twinkle in your eye, be more frank about your life and situation than you might otherwise be, try out some conversational gambits that you might hesitate to use if you thought more was on the line. Whatever mask you wear, drop it a bit.

That does sound lovely, but while what I'm about to say definitely sounds like a humble brag, it really isn't meant to be one. I don't want her to get attached, or to end up attached myself. It's only a few short months till I'm gone, likely for good, and I don't want to make things more painful than they absolutely have to be.

She's a very sheltered girl, and if I'm my usual flirtatious self, that means they have a distressing tendency to fall for me. I'm not an asshole, everyone I've seen after my breakup, I made it clear that I'm going to flee India for good eventually, and when the news of my match came in, rather soon. This hasn't stopped a few people from clinging onto me more than they should. I don't blame them, the average guy they encounter is shit, I've seen men hotter, richer or more muscular than me fuck things up, their sheer negative rizz causing atrophic vaginitis from a block away. So if I do go out on a date, no matter how chaste, I'd rather not leave her missing me. I'm not so full of myself as to claim it's a guaranteed thing, far from it, but it would make things very awkward.

I already know that I can be charming when I care to be, and that I'm not rusty. She's better off not being the subject of further experimentation, especially when I really don't expect either of us to hold a candle for that long.

If she's that closely connected, she might wind up being a family friend in the long run, and this would make a good story for when your own respective kids meet on a dating app.

🤨

More seriously, she's doing just fine, and when we do talk, I make it a point to be both mildly flirty and also walk their through any stress or concerns she has about med school. I do genuinely like helping people, and unlike my own brother, she takes it seriously and is thus stressed out over how it's going, despite being more talented and harder working than the two of us put together. So at least I know I'm a mildly positive experience and someone she can talk to.

My future kids? They can fend for themselves.

And if you hit it off, well, you might be needing a new shrink soon, what with the move and all, right?

It helps that I'm going to be surrounded by them, more than I can shake a stick at. Worry not, that's one of the perks of being a psych trainee, they know how shit my salary is and might take pity and waive some of their consultation fees.

All I really need a psych for is refills of my ADHD meds, sadly the wait list in the NHS for a formal evaluation is 2 years long, though I'd hope my existing diagnosis suffices. At any rate, I want to switch off Ritalin, it works but it also happens to suck.

So it won't be the ideal situation, but if she's close enough to the ideal girl for you, then don't let her get away. Don't make the modern mistake of having an image in your head of what your life should be like, and then waiting for it to fulfill itself. If she's got brains and integrity and a sense of humor, and you find yourself falling for her, seize the opportunity when it presents itself. (Finding out if someone has integrity, in the time you have available, there's the rub...)

Who knew the Motte was filled with so many hopeless romantics? The prognosis is always terminal.

I think she's fun and very sweet. She certainly did a good job calming me down after a nurse behaved so abominably with me I blew my top and vented about it later. But I don't know her well enough to put down a definitive diagnosis of "wife material". She's young, she's got a long road ahead of her, and even I'm just halfway done. And I'm sure you see why I have my reasons for keeping a modest distance, all the good I can do for her, it's from afar, and if I get closer, chances are it'll just hurt the two of us.

(I'm a terminal romantic myself. It sucks.)

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 9d ago

Yes, actually. I mean, I'm mostly familiar with the value of citizenship during the Republic, but there were literal wars fought by the Latinates for the right to be full citizens of Rome. It came with voting rights, and I seem to recall it also provided more legal protections and other rights.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 9d ago

I understand your fear of marriage, especially one with so little time to figure out if you really have a connection and are worried about the feasibility of a relationship working over long distance.

I'm not afraid of marriage. I easily see myself happily married, but after a modest number of years, spent mostly in unchecked hedonism. If, in the middle, I did find another person I could genuinely see myself settling down with, I'd have few qualms about cutting that phase of my life short.

Are you worried that you'll find greener grass? Or is it your internal monologue when you see women?

I'd prefer grass that's just on my side of a very wide field really. It makes mowing the lawn significantly easier, all the myriad acts of love and general maintenance that makes a relationship work are eased through proximity. I can't go so far as to say that LDRs are impossible, I know plenty of existence proofs out there, not just you, but I expect them to fail far more often than not, when the number of years till you see each other again on a regular basis can be as many as 4 or more.

From a more practical perspective, I'd prefer to marry a woman who's already settled into her career and supplementing our income.

The hardest part is, given your situation, that chances are one of you will have to give up or compromise your career for the other to some extent. That will be one of those things that can be very difficult for couples to navigate, but it's doable if both people are willing to work for each other instead of their onw goals and is an inevitable part of almost every relationship.

I've done that before, to my detriment, and it was wasted in the end, both the time and the money.

I'm in the UK for a minimum of 3 years. I could see 5 being ideal, since that's how long it would take to get Indefinite Leave to Remain. 6? Then I'd be a full consultant by UK standards (a mere 3 is enough for the majority of the globe), and that's also how long it would take for full citizenship.

After that? I'm going where the money and the lifestyle is. If avenues closed to me right now open up, it could well be the US, or maybe Australia. If they remain shut, I'll likely make a great deal more money in the Middle East, not that I want to live there for anything but the money.

I'm not entirely averse to settling down in the UK, especially with a partner who makes a comparable sum, but it's plan B for now. Maybe even C.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 9d ago

On one hand, the leverage your close family and personal connections you have with this young woman is a little disconcerting. On the other hand, you're hitting it off and you seem to both like each other.

Please don't assume that she's going to be forced into a marriage with me against her wishes. At most, my dad could ask her dad if he'd be okay with it, and have it taken seriously, including being presented to her for her consideration. But if she said no, I'm confident they'd respect her wishes.

I'm hardly a bad catch, and we evidently saw something in each other when we matched, so I have no idea how she'd react. I just don't consider myself remotely ready.

I applaud your ability to make an LDR work, but I sincerely doubt they're for me. As it stands, I'm giving myself like 3 to 5 years to find someone on my own terms before I feel tempted to lean back on such options.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 9d ago

Uh.. I don't think anyone cares.

Maybe conservative Muslims. The girls I knew who got married off in med school had been engaged well before theys started.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago

It's English. Or at least ebonics haha. I don't think I've ever used Bengali over here.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago

Marriage is very much something I'd prefer to do after getting to know someone, preferably live with them in advance to test the waters, and finally, have it not be an utter ballache to manage my own life around, given that I only know for a fact where I'll be for 3 years, even 5 or 6 is stretching it.

At least consider the girl's perspective, she encounters a family friend's son on a dating app, is kinda taken by him, but for the love of god, we've got both matrimonial websites and dating apps around. I assure you we didn't meet on the former, and it wouldn't just be jumping the gun, it would be sodomizing it, for either of us to leap straight to marriage.

Neither of us want to get married! She's only halfway through med school! I'm moving abroad. How on earth is that going to work unless we were childhood sweethearts holding a candle out for each other?? The last time I was at her place, I was probably younger than 10 and she must have been barely out of toddling around, I didn't even know she existed until this happened.

Ahhhhhhhhh

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago · Edited 10d ago

Ay yo, I didn't force her to make an account on a dating app 💀

Depending on the definition of fucking around in play, I feel like I've certainly earned myself some leeway given:

I just got out of a relationship that was, despite genuine effort put in by both of us, simply not working out, worsening my stress and depression to the point I quite literally was leaking fluid inside my retina.
I'm leaving the country in a few months. Quite possible for good. Ideally so, it's more a matter of where I want to end up once my stint in Scotland is done, returning here isn't something I plan at all.
She didn't ask for the whole thing to be escalated either. She assured me she didn't want her dad finding out, and I sure as hell didn't want my own family, my brother couldn't resist getting one in at my expense.

At any rate, I assure you that I have been nothing but nice to her, even if I don't consider myself in a position to get married right now, and I think she'd move to a convent if she found out that this was the consequence of trying out adventure for a little bit.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago

You need to change your username my guy. It's far too easy to mistake that for asexual, and I might be a horny bastard but I'm not quite that far gone yet haha.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago

He has seen into the abyss and with that you are still a viable candidate. That speaks about both the alternatives he is aware of and likely his calculus of what the baseline mental state of the educated Indian male of your social stature. If his daughter is hot go for it, and rub it in your brothers face that you overcame adversity.

To the best of my knowledge, her dad doesn't know, and I'm immensely grateful. I asked her if he'd ever mentioned me as a patient, and was suitably impressed that he'd never brought it up at all, not even when my dad was around. A far more respectable psychiatrist than I am (even when I do finish my degree), he seems to take client confidentiality seriously while I just file off the serial numbers enough not to get into trouble with my governing body.

I'd have preferred to keep my parents blissfully ignorant, but my brother had other ideas. The sheer ingratitude, when I was the one taking Ritalin to coax and prod him through his finals? (Said Ritalin prescribed by the girl's dad. Sigh.)

Eh, while I'd be lying if I said I didn't think with my dick, it only holds a rotating seat in the Insecurity Council, though of course wielding a veto. But right now, marry a med student with 3 years to go who would then have to worry about her own UK licensing exams? Bruh. I can flex on my own brother in other ways, not that I don't love the cheeky little shit.

If I had to guess, I do think her dad would be open to the suggestion. I haven't really done anything awful, he just happens to know I was pretty depressed at one point and have ADHD. No real skeletons in my closet, just the overflow of my mom's sarees.

Besides, it's rare for girls to get married off while still med students. The only odd case or three I can recall, they were Muslim, from conservative backgrounds. Most Indian parents, the Hindu ones, at least, are kind enough to wait till you're out of med school before the real nagging about the pitter patter of little feet begins. They'd be happy enough to have an informal engagement, all the more so if the couple to be had genuine interest, but the formalities can wait.

Having spent more time examining the London offerings, I would say that if the girls are below 27 it is ok to see. Barely out of university so they haven't had time to adjust their own presentation to match local white standards, old enough to not be blind waifs ignorant of basic functions, amenable enough to listen to their mothers and will get scolded by their own parents if they go against the man. Finding white girls to date in Scotland is all well and good, but do recall my earlier points about mass distribution curves, and also be wary of their extremely low tolerance of UV radiation.

I'm listening. I'm learning. I even look at some of the girls sent my way, not that anyone has convinced me to take them seriously quite yet.

At least my long stint in Oncology means I can tell a melanoma when I see one! I bring a lot to the table 💪

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 10d ago · Edited 10d ago

I sense a tale waiting to be told. Sure, Germany is far too close for comfort for the British, ancestral memory and all that. I suppose you can subsidize the alcoholism and I'll get the sauerkraut. I think both of us could use the drink, if not the wiener.

Your family cares about you. Be glad.

Oh I certainly am touched, my family is great, not that it stops me from muttering about the way their care and concern manifests on occasion. I'm only mildly exasperated; I'm no lemon or old beater that I need an enthusiastic salesperson or a dozen trying to sell me off to the highest bidder, but eh, enough stress might bring about the male pattern baldness earlier than expected and it's always good to have a backup.

Apart from all that, what is your family's opinion on you moving to Scotland?

My parents never wanted me to move abroad, and were vocal about it. To them, an ideal ending would be me taking up my dad's reins as a surgeon, or at least marrying a woman just regaining her sanity after a gyne MS, so that his massive clientele and skills can be handed down to someone who needs them for more than writing the odd examination or two. Well, they've got my younger brother still in the oven, and while I doubt he's insane enough to take up gyne either, I'd bet decent money he'll be getting married off eventually, preferably to a surgeon. He's far more handsome, but simply doesn't give a single fuck about the fairer sex. Not gay either, he ignores the horny fucks sliding into his DMs, and those include one of his male professors from med school. I suppose he'll just shrug and bear it. I'm deeply jealous, that's a level of sanity that I can never aspire to.

But that's all the ill I can speak about my parents. They've been supportive of my own ambitions, even if it means I'm flying the coop. The worst they've done is occasionally argue and try and dangle carrots before me, never the stick. They have valid arguments, both emotional and practical, but so do I. I don't think I'd ever be happy in India, I fit in much better abroad.

Right now, they're feeling the same melancholic, bittersweet happiness that I do. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but they're proud that their son is getting around to adding more alphabet soup behind his name, and a degree in the UK still gets their peers nodding appreciatively, so they can't complain. A postgrad degree is what everyone is dying to acquire post MBBS, while doctors might seem interchangeable to a layman beyond knowing their age and specialization, the lack of the latter doesn't get you very far in the eyes of your peers or your career.

I certainly wouldn't be getting so many marriage offers if I hadn't proven that I have some degree of academic competence, at least not from the parents of other doctors, though that's partly because until you've got that locked in, the rest of your life looks an interminable grind getting there.

Cheers to you, not that I can drink on duty. I can use a continental vacation at some point, and a beer, dearly.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 11d ago

I recently spoke to a cute med student on the dating apps, same med school as my younger brother.

She tells me she knows my brother. I mean, who doesn't? He's a looker, all the girls and a good quarter of the guys want to know him, in the biblical sense, but she wasn't so crass. All good.

She she says she knows my dad. Okay.. But I've heard worse.

She goes on to say that not only are our parents colleagues, they're from the same med school. What a coincidence!

I ask my brother about her. You know, due diligence. He gives me a look, and tells me to keep my filthy paws off her if I know what's good for me. Huh. That's new. I swear he's never had that particular reaction before, and I wanted to know why, but he just shook his head, asked me to confirm her surname, and wandered off.

Then she says that hey, your dad was visiting our place just a month or so back, how's he doing? Quite well, thank you for asking. What field of medicine are your parents in? Gynecologists themselves?

I matched into psychiatry. Then I found out, after a very reasonable amount of flirting, that I had matched with my psychiatrist's daughter on a dating app. I told her that I had literally called him a month back to share the good news. The former, the latter was nothing but bad.

My dad delivered her by c-sec. He does that to a lot of people, it's not a very exclusive club, after all, how could it be, when I'm a member?

My fucking brother, he was laughing his ass off in the next room, the walls, while thick, weren't nearly enough to hide the chortles or my beet red face. Then the asshole goes on to tell my parents about her, and I limp back home from work, only to have my dad ask me if I want to marry her.

I chuckle and throw my employee ID card somewhere it won't be missed. Then I take a good look. He's not joking. This is the opposite of good, but what am I good at except brushing off commitment?

No? Then stop fucking around, SMH (he's also shaking his head, and I mine). She's a Good Girl™, studious, from a respectable family. You want to get married? I can call her dad right now. He's not kidding either. I thought I was dead inside, but apparently it's always possible to make room for desert and to make what's already dead roll over and die again.

I assure him that as someone about to move countries and stay in Scotland for 3 years and change, marrying an Indian med student only halfway through her course is the ABSOLUTE LAST THING I want to be doing.

Ah, but they're well off enough, and so are we. We could fly her out every six months or so to see you.

-_-

My mom was in the room and giggling her ass off. Thank you for the moral support mom.

I tell my dad that I don't think a healthy marriage involves the newly weds living a continent away, seeing each other every blue moon. He doesn't seem all that fussed, and I realized that roughly summed up the first few years of his marriage, given how he was on the sigma grindset. I suppose there's a reason they had their honeymoon when I was three years old. No, I tell him, given that if there's ever going to be a shotgun wedding, her dad will be the one wielding one, only to keep me at bay. He's my fucking shrink, he knows things. He'd need a shrink himself if he let me anywhere near his cute and nerdy daughter, and I'm not licensed yet.

At this point, my mom asks me if I care to examine the latest batch of single ladies lovingly handpicked out for me by my aunt in London. I've well and truly had enough, I stomp out of there with steam, tinted pink with dying brain tissue, hissing out of my ears.

My life is a farce. Joke's on me. So are the drinks, but only because I'm going to be downing a lot of them.

12

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