The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
New Year's resolution check-ins
How goes it @FtttG and @oats_son
No point pursuing it if she's not putting in the effort. It's funny though: some people are very good at expressing themselves, but hopeless when it comes to texting. The fact that she's responding in monosyllables doesn't necessarily mean she's not interested. But yeah, don't waste your time.
Also – is it "Argentinian", or "Argentine"?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Coffee Haters Club
I reduced my intake to 16-24 grams of beans per day (one full strength cup or two slightly weaker cups). I did this mainly to improve my sleep after getting a bit carried away with using coffee as fuel, but also to keep some of the joy in this hobby instead of building too much tolerance towards it all. One should be a bit careful with raising standards. YOLO, but also being mindful of how regular consumption of good things makes them less special.
I've tried out decaffeinated whole beans that were treated with the Swiss Water Method. I'm not very impressed. There's a 'hole' in this coffee. Something is clearly missing, not just caffine but aroma/taste wise too. I bought a whole kg of the thing. It will have to serve as a vehicle for a cup of decaf with plenty of cream and sugar in the late afternoons.
The Gesha (also spelled Geisha) bean from Honduras which I mentioned to @Muninn I had ordered is very good. Apparently the bean type came into use in the town of Gesha in Ethiopia in 1930 or something? It was rumored to smell of jasmine, and it actually does. It's pretty cool. The drinking experience isn't all that different from any other decent bean though. It's too expensive to make a habit of, at 3x the cost vs most beans. I'll gladly try other Gesha beans if offered, but I can't justify regular purchases.
Other purchases lately:
Sierra Mazateca beans from Mexico. This one is great. It actually smelled vaguely of honey, but also berries at times. Recommended!
A mixed bag of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Ethiopian beans: Surprisingly good. It smells of a lovely spicy herb garden upon grinding. I didn't know anything about the practice of mixing different beans together, I only vaguely remember seeing that in the coffee shop in the game Persona 5. :P
More options
Context Copy link
Well, I did the relationship therapist thing.
She was very competent and nothing I had to say surprised her. Very professional even though she was covered in tattoos. She knows her stuff, at least as far as I can see, and I can see pretty far for an amateur.
I'll post again once I get a result. One way or the other.
More options
Context Copy link
This comment excerpt gave me a fun idea: The Chad harem/offspring-maxxxing doctors and lawyers explain to the autist incel programmers and engineers their personal understandings of how friendship and romance work!
Even before I realized that familiarity inevitably breeds contempt and stopped making attempts at pseudo-friendship, I absolutely hated the idea of obtaining an actual friend or a romantic partner only to be constantly forced by that person to do random things in which I had no interest. It seemed like a continuation of how my parents would torture me by making me join after-school clubs and dragging me to museums, concerts, and weddings.
I assumed that any friend or romantic partner would require me to do such things. But now @daguerrean says that only an inferior, weak-willed "beta" man allows his romantic partner to lead him around by the nose to random events. So, is it normal friendship/romance behavior to drag the other party to an event in which he is not interested, or not? Has my entire life been a lie?
Relationships are all about compromise, and give and take. You demonstrate your affection for your partner by doing things that she wants to do and you don't: after all, if they were things you enjoyed doing, you'd do them anyway. It's the fact that you're willing to sacrifice your time and resources to do something for her that demonstrates how important she is to you. The important thing is that it cuts both ways: if you're doing things for her that you don't enjoy, there's a reasonable expectation that she return the favour. But try not to think about this too much, or you run the risk of making your relationship seem cheap and transactional, a ledger that requires constant balancing. If you want her to watch a dumb action movie with you, when she asks you to come for dinner with her parents, just smile and say "of course, dear". Or buy her flowers or something. It's not rocket science. If it's weak-willed or "beta" to do things for your partner that you don't really want to do, well, that just sounds kind of exploitative to me. Good luck finding a girlfriend who's completely happy for you to walk all over her and never do anything for her in return.
I don't think this ordinary fact about romantic relationships should discourage you from getting into one. If you were to ask me to list the things about my girlfriend that most get on my nerves, the fact that she occasionally drags me along to go window-shopping with her would not crack the top ten, the top twenty, probably not even the top fifty.
If I do have a line in the sand, it's preference falsification. If my girlfriend wants me to come to some boring museum exhibition with her, I'll go along happily. If she wants me to attend a protest for some political cause I emphatically don't support (say, a "Free Palestine" rally), that's a hard no. Even the idea of going to a protest I don't support just to meet girls makes me feel gross. And yes, it does strike me as a bit lame to performatively attend a protest you wouldn't attend otherwise just because your wife wants you to.
More options
Context Copy link
IANAC but I believe that while daguerrean is saying that that specific instance of being drug along to a protest (and certainly the way the guy describes it) is beta-ish, the standard going along shopping/to the museum/etc. (presumably harmless social activities) with your wife/girlfriend are not necessarily.
Certainly a big part of being married is being a good sport and going along with your wife/husband to events that you might not otherwise. In ideal circumstances you'd both only ever do stuff you both enjoy but that's just not realistic unless you've achieved mythical 100% compatibility. I've certainly taken my wife to stuff that she's been less than enthusiastic about, but at least we come away with a shared experience and maybe something to laugh about later. For my part, I tolerate the occasional shopping trip.
So no, your entire life has not been a lie, and yes romantic partners will want you to do stuff.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link