George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
You can create any image, drop it into Keynote as a slide, then superimpose any font(s) you like. Then simply export the slide as an image file. PowerPoint can also probably do this. I'm sure Photoshop, etc. can do this as well but I've no experience.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
What does this mean?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
My metaphors don't always hit. I was referring to the dangers of navigating interactions with other women, and how reading the wind wrong can sink your ship suddenly and unexpectedly, i.e. wreck your marriage or torpedo the trust of your marriage, which is little better.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
I gotcha. I suppose in a way perhaps I think most people may just not be cut out for marriage in today's world because everything is telling them that marriage is a deal you can just renege on later. As opposed to a sacred vow. And I see the choice to opt out as preferable to screwing up kids who have to stomach seeing their parents divorce. But I see your point, certainly, and I'll give it some thought the next time I am tempted to jump in with dubious advice. Thanks for clarifying.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
I'd like to think I am encouraging it, and taking it very seriously, much like Kierkegaard wrote about Christianity:
I wonder if a man handing another man an extremely sharp, polished, two-edged instrument would hand it over with the air, gestures, and expression of one delivering a bouquet of flowers? Would not this be madness? What does one do, then? Convinced of the excellence of the dangerous instrument, one recommends it unreservedly, to be sure, but in such a way that in a certain sense one warns against it. So it is with Christianity. If what is needed is to be done, we should not hesitate, aware of the highest responsibility, to preach in Christian sermons—yes, precisely in Christian sermons—AGAINST Christianity.
Not to get too heavy. I thought your post offering your own advice was quite good.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
Maybe my wording put you off, I was overly blunt, but you've got me wrong, for whatever it's worth. I married when I was 35, late for guys in my generation. We lived together two years prior to marriage. I'm not now nor was I then immune to lust. I'd have thought my earlier post made that clear.
Also I've seen most of my friends marry and divorce. One of my best friends is about to get married for a third time. I have seen very plainly the arc of love, disenchantment, and failure.
That said, no one has to listen to me. My advice has been ignored before and no doubt will be again.
It depends. On what? In how much you love her. And your relationship. And whatever it is you both build out of it, whatever family you make. It depends on how committed you both are to fidelity, how much of a deal breaker it is. It will also depend on how careless you allow yourself to be by putting yourself into situations where you'll be tempted to stray--and let me assure you now that there are and will be many, many such situations unless you willfully and consciously navigate away from them. Pence isn't the fool people make him out to be, at least not in this regard. The clashing rocks, as it were. They'll get you. Then you'll be playing guilt and intrigue games forever. You needn't go far to find examples of this.
It frankly sounds to me that you're not ready. Sex is just sex. The variety of women and women's bodies, that thrill, the hunt, the look, that way a girl's eyes change when she realizes she wants you, how her body language picks up, the little pulses of interest, the smell of her make-up, and hers, and hers. I could go on. I won't. Gold can't buy this. (Of course it can, but not really. Gold buys the facsimile.) Juxtapose that next to growing old with one woman--will she lop off her hair? The inevitable graying and broadening. In both of you. But also the intimacy, the knowing without being told, the chatty suppers, the contented silences, the shared life. Trust. Is anything more valuable?
I won't--can't-- tell you which you are meant for. One or the other. Or maybe neither. If you're lucky you have a choice, and you can fuck up either one easily. Good luck.
Edit: 18 1/2 years of marriage here.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
You may or may not be prone to judging yourself harshly, I don't know. What I've found is that--and I do not mean to sound arrogant or conceited here--many people, perhaps even most in certain fields, are idiots. Some, of course, are idiots on every level, but I've noticed most all of us have at least some part of our lives where we are weak. The microbiologist has no social skills. The talented surgeon is inarticulate. Maybe it's true that whatever you're doing is easy for you, but for some it's downright challenging.
Personally the colleague closest to my own job seems to have great difficulty, stress even, with tasks that I find relatively simple, even though they take time and involve problem-solving. What I'm suggesting is that maybe you're right: It's easy for you. That doesn't mean it's easy for everybody else
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
(Coughs) Well. No. Whatever gave you that idea? I only speak with some degree of knowledge in that I've known at least four of said CAs, one of whom I consider a dear friend, though she quit last year.
But seriously what makes you have that impression?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
In Kulak's preferred vision, wouldn't the bitch with the gun and her opponent be living out the dream? Settle it yourselves, get off my lawn or else, etc. If your sitting room catches a stray bullet, time to enter the fray yourself with a 12 gauge. An interesting listen for the morning commute.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
In my experience it's a segue to sn end to the conversation, but not always. As with everything, it depends. I've had girls drop this but seemingly want to not only keep talking but meet again. The Rule Above All Rules is to roll with it, to show no hurt or disappointment. No need to be funny unless you're naturally so, as that can seem try hard. End of the day, nothing wrong with enjoying a platonic conversation with an attractive woman.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Emirates flight attendants are the conversationalists you seek.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Then there's the idea that learning sales frames the world as a sea of marks or buyers to be maneuvered and manipulated. Maybe I'm biased against sales as I saw my dad do it for years and it eventually left a bitter taste. To be a good salesperson requires social savvy, sure, but when you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change, the devil changes you.
Peripherally relevant but one of my old favorites.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
What do you think about the idea that in order to be morally worthy of a romantic relationship, you need to be willing and able to endure great suffering either for the greater good, or for your tribe, or for no reason at all?
I think it's a bizarre concept. It's not even masochism--the masochist presumably at least takes some pleasure, sensual or otherwise, from the punishment and degradation. What you're describing here seems to be somewhere in and among original sin, serious self-loathing, and a deathwish.
It's also not entirely clear to me that once one passes this what you're describing as Hell on Earth, that to be in this same person 's presence romantically would be to endure a "deep visceral biological disgust."
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
I feel as if you must have either immersed yourself in some really angry, fairly unrealistic online discourse regarding the dating scene, or that you yourself have had some fairly horrible experiences in your romantic interactions with women. I am not suggesting that terrible outcomes are not possible, but the likelihood of being beat up or having the cops called on anyone for approaching a woman seems exceedingly low, unless of course you are doing something very, very wrong (I mean like wearing a shirt covered in blood level wrong).
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
Notably in the Swift video she plays both the current brunette-presumably-selfish girlfriend as well as the protagonist/singer blonde version pining misunderstood friend. That poor footballer.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
I suppose I have fewer hopes in modern medicine than you, particularly as regards the health risks of smoking (or vaping). You may or may not be right about the prospects of lung cancer for any given smoker, but obviously routine smoking is a predictor of all manner of other cancers, as well as COPD and various other non-respiratory ailments.
I am not telling you anything you do not already know.
I would probably still smoke when drinking, as I did for years, just for the social aspect, but I seem to have developed what is probably chronic bronchitis (though I have not been diagnosed) and the last time I had a cigarette with a smoker friend of mine I was coughing for days afterward. Not fun.
Don't take this as my being preachy, though it's true I tend toward being that gadfly presence in people's lives. As I suggested earlier, we all have our faults, and I certainly have mine--nagging being one of them. Doctors in Japan are notorious for actively avoiding telling people to stop smoking or drinking, or even suggesting this as a possibility, though they will regularly shake their heads at eating so-called "western food." Once a doctor's prescribed remedy for my son's digestive issues was: "Eat Japanese food" (和食を食べなさい). The vagueness of this was not surprising, but it still ground my gears.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Sorry to see you go.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
I see med students smoking regularly off campus grounds, and if there is ever any remonstration from the hospital it takes the form of photographs of unsightly cigarette butts thrown in the sidewalk--a problem because it upsets the neighborhood nearby, presumably, for social harmony is the real moral law here. Appearances, face, tatemae.
I never get it when I see doctors smoking. I feel the same quasi-revulsion as when I read about married pastors fucking their parishioners, cops stealing, or college administrators privileging star athletes and sports over academic programs. The little glimpses of entropy and chaos. Yes, I'm a naive idealist.
That said, it was a nice read. We all contain multitudes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Without a doubt, every word of what you write is true according to my own experience. However I would suggest that "outside my comfort zone" takes many, many (probably for me more than most) forms. I would further suggest that in this particular circumstance, considering the issues at hand (namely, how to negotiate one's way through what can seem at times like an absolute maze built in a foggy quagmire known as "How to interact with women so that you can have some sort of sex life (but also adhere to some sort of moral standard)", then following some Procrustean rulebook to adhere to the Wants of Women is, perhaps counterintuitively, not the way to approach it. For an abundance of reasons, none of which I would argue have anything to do with misogyny or even lack of concern for women.
Mind you my issue is with Tucker 's title, which I think needs reworking. Maybe he means "the man women want viscerally without knowing why" as opposed to how I took it, which is "the man you think a woman feels is a good match." The former is doable within reason. The latter is a pathway to nowhere, and reminds me of those who deride what they call "toxic masculinity" and suggest a certain passive docility is what would heal us all.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
My wife has recently claimed that drinking something called saji berry juice (which she mixes with orange juice) has changed her moods, aches, and generally feeling for the better. The little drop of Retsyn apparently is iron supplementation; apparently saji is high in iron. The link I am linking to says it's called "seaberry" or "sea buckthorn" and I have no idea what it is and had never seen or heard of it until there it was in a carton in our fridge.
This is what she drinks.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
Yes, you cannot help overthinking, yes. You are spot on here. You cannot help overthinking. Or can you? Can you begin to help it. I think you can. Help the overthinking to go away.
What's your plan for tomorrow's lunch? No plan? Okay spend some time thinking about that. What are you going to eat? Why? Are you on a diet regime at the moment? Exercising? What's your BMI? When was your last health checkup, and are you planning to begin the process of sculpting or taking ownership of your body and appearance or are you just going to melt into entropic blobhood like most Americans do (No idea if you are American)?
I am not solely trying to distract your interest here, I am mostly serious. But you see my point. There are other things for you to be focusing on that have to do with your very real well-being that have zero whatsoever to do with any woman. Finally, brother, whatsoever is healthy, whatsoever gets you those gainz, what adds to your physical strength and formidableness, whatsoever clears your complexion and staves off the beergut--if there be any excellence in your life or anything praiseworthy--dwell on these things.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
That would be 99% of reddit, and I agree with you. Even my own limited experience with pot has given me pause. I think I may be more susceptible than most to its effects.
6'8" and 245, yes indeed. It sounds like your self-awareness has the bases covered, and your wearing a suit will temper the nerviness of most people. When you say "close-shaved head" does that mean cue ball bald or just close-cropped? There will be quite different perceptions depending, especially on how you wear your beard. My buddies back home all seem to think huge goatees are a great look (they're not in my view, unless you want to be associated with tiki torch marches). All in all from the picture you're painting really you've nothing to worry about except the Nervous Nellies who will worry no matter what you do.
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