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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1223 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How unreasonable is it to prioritize work over interpersonal connections? I truly enjoy my work and find it so much more gratifying than anything else I have ever done in my life, but there seems to be some sort of prevailing consensus that you are only human if you relate to others? Has anyone else led a somewhat more solitary existence and prioritized only themselves over connections with others (outside of the connections you make at work anyway in a team, although those connections are more transactional in nature)?

It's reasonable if it's a stable, long term preference. If it's only an intermittent preference, and especially if you might want a family, your late 20s and early 30s is exactly the wrong time to remain socially secluded.

At some point companionship would be helpful but I am opposed to children, even though they’re lovely, because of other personal reasons.

How were your early 30s in terms of socialization? I don’t dislike the idea of it, but the effort vs returns can vary significantly

How were your early 30s in terms of socialization? I don’t dislike the idea of it, but the effort vs returns can vary significantly

I moved states, got married, had a baby, and moved again during Covid, so my social life outside my husband and family was pretty thin.

In my late 20s, my social connections were through church, liberal arts college, and volunteer work, and that was lovely. We were putting on supras (formal toasting dinner parties), bonfires, game and beer nights, holiday festivities, meditation meet ups and other pleasant events.

Personally, I would have gotten burnt out working all the time and not prioritizing community get togethers, but I'm a woman, low in conscientiousness, and doing the kind of work where more work doesn't result in increased opportunities, so ymmv.

Your 20s sound so idyllic, thank you for describing them and your life now too, it all sounds lovely. I sort of imagined myself vicariously at a bonfire too for a moment.

This is the thing with socialization, it never seems like a bad thing and people’s overall view of them doing all this is always great to learn about.

I’m a woman too but I think I crave positive reinforcement in the form of quantized and measurable feedback which a high-impact, complex job seems to offer. Sometimes I struggle with such feedback from human beings, and it might be unseemly to ask people to rate their social interactions with me on a scale of 1-10?

I’m a woman too but I think I crave positive reinforcement in the form of quantized and measurable feedback which a high-impact, complex job seems to offer. Sometimes I struggle with such feedback from human beings, and it might be unseemly to ask people to rate their social interactions with me on a scale of 1-10?

Has The Motte finally found a mythical Manic Pixie Dream Girl Autist?

Welcome! I suspect you will not suffer from lack of positive reinforcement around here.

You think so? This place scratches some autistic itch I have to observe humans as anthropological interests, but yet I love the feeling of being outside the bubble of it. I’m too stupid for astral codex ten though sadly. Wish I had that advanced form of autism.

The other comment can be interpreted as a joke with two meanings.

In the misty past, it was the default assumption that all users of the Internet were ugly men, and any user claiming otherwise without providing proof was a liar—a person shrewd enough to assume a convincing false persona in order to gain social clout in online spaces. (A long-dead shorthand phrase related to this phenomenon is "tits or GTFO"—i. e., the identity of an Internet poster as female cannot be confirmed without a photograph in which the subject exposes herself while holding a piece of paper with a timestamp.)

In modern times, this assumption has greatly weakened. (In particular, the "rationalist" community has been accused of being too trusting and incapable of simulating the thought processes of liars.) But it has not totally disappeared. So, in the opinion of the other commenter, if you are actually a woman you will get the deserved attention that you want, and if you are an ugly man pretending to be a woman you will get the undeserved attention that you want from this website's "quokka" denizens (positive reinforcement for your evil trolling).

In the misty past, it was the default assumption that all users of the Internet were ugly men

The joke I remember was "Welcome to the Internet, where all the men are men, all the women are men, and all the children are FBI agents."

That was before anyone was really thinking of trans-ness or anything like that, just the demographics of those inclined to figure out dial-up modems or work in tech in that era.

Haha, I started using the internet when I was 16 so I do remember TITS OR GTFO phase; those men probably have families now. Strange thing to consider.

if you are actually a woman you will get the deserved attention that you want

What type of attention do women deserve and want? I want to imagine the internet is more egalitarian now and just being a woman online (an egirl?) isn’t enough to warrant any special treatment or attention.

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