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Friday Fun Thread for January 13, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How do you notice yourself growing older? I have a mildly amusing anecdote to tell.

For the longest time I used to trigger the mommy mode in older women. The last three years have been spent working remotely, so I had much fewer reference points, but around the new year I had to deal with a few female strangers in their late forties (I'm in my late thirties myself) and the interactions felt a little off, but I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong.

And then it hit me: they were low-key flirting with me. Not in the sense of "how about instead of fixing the zipper on your parka I'll take you to the changing room", but the overall tone of the conversation swiitched from "oh, what a bright boy" to "oh, what a handsome man".

I don't know what triggered this: the beard, the broader silhouette I've gained in the gym, just the years piling up or everything together, but I am not sure how to handle this. I'd rather girls half their age (or half my age) tried to hit on the sexy daddy to match my wife's experience. Or perhaps they already do and I'm just too oblivious and only the women who are old and wise enough to lay it on thick get through?

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." -- Mark Twain

It took me until 31, but he's right.

I also find I'm more and more set in my tastes and abilities. When I was younger, I wanted to do and often did what you were "supposed" to do, now if I don't like the normal way to do something I just refuse to do it. I don't do straight bar deadlifts because every time I do it I end up hurting my back. When I drink, I first prepare a 40oz liquid IV for when I return. I'm never going to really like IPAs.

I wish Twain's comment was the case for all of us. As I've grown older, and I'm 35 now, I respect my parents much less. It was only after going out and getting more experience in the world that I was able to understand how selfish they were. That was a tough pill to swallow.

How do you mean selfish? Or actually, could you just expand on all of this if it's not too personal? I went the same route as FiveHourMarathon, so your experience is very alien to me.

My father was a police officer in a very dangerous city, and he wanted a "take home" car that he could park outside our house, to show people he was a police officer and so that he wouldn't have to drive to the station each morning to pick up a car. The police department that he worked at required police to live within the city limits to have this privilege, and so we bought a house in this city, and I went to school there. This meant that the public middle and high schools I went to were simply atrocious. Gangs, metal detectors, weekly fights, shootings, underage pregnancies, drugs, etc. Before moving into this area, I was a relatively sheltered child who had lived on military bases, so as you can imagine this was quite a shock for me.

My mother didn't work (and still doesn't), and really wanted to live the American dream of having a house with a picket fence and play housewife even if that house was only affordable to them due to the bad schools around it. Instead of getting into a lot of trouble as a kid, I simply shelled up and was very depressed and scared. Regardless of anything I was going through - we couldn't move since my parents loved having a house and I couldn't go to a different school because we didn't have enough money for a private school.

And I developed deep life long depression and still sometimes panic in large crowds due to the fights and riots I experienced while in school. After high school I often wondered why I was so emotionally immature and I think some of it had to do with growing up in this sort of environment. Regardless, I have taken responsibility for my life now and have my own family and children. As I look back upon this situation, I can't help but respect my own parents less and less as I age. It pains me to be around them, as they seemingly were very happy to sacrifice my happiness and childhood for their way of life.

You, a cop's kid, had to pay protection to bullies in school ?

US is kind of weird. I don't think this would've happend to a cop's kid in eastern Europe. Not that I've ever heard of anyone paying protection at school. People do get bullied. I went to a non-selective state middle school and got into a lot of fights over insults before I learnd to tune them out.

Was bullied a bit at the end of it but fortunately it was only one semester and it wasn't that bad. Maybe because I had a reputation for psychotic fighting if provoked, the guys who bullied me were cca 15 and 200 lbs each, I weighed maybe 140 at the time.

I think you're muddling "shelled up" with shelled out.

Yeah.. that's a phrase I haven't seen used yet, and "shelled out" looked like it'd fit there, so..

(also shift work makes me lose sleep, so..)