i love it when you accidentally meet eyes with a stranger in public and you flash a quick polite smile and they look at you like they wish you were dead in a ditch
I’ve seen this several times on my dash and always with southerners being confused in the tags why the rest of the US is like this, and as a southerner, I have to say, SAME. Like, there’s plenty to hate about the south, don’t get me wrong, but at least in general we have public courtesy down to a science. I ordered at a Sonic out West once and the guy specifically had someone take over his headset so he could come out and shake my hand because he was from Tennessee and it was the first time since he moved West that he heard anyone say “Yes sir.” And it’s just…. Automatic for me? And this polite smile thing, people will jump and glare and I’m just trying to be friendly not awkward? What else is a socially anxious southern child to do upon accidentally making eye contact? Look down and hurry away? Isn’t that rude??? Someone explain why is smiling met with such anger I am confused and afraid.
Exactly!! When I moved to Missouri I was baffled at how rude everyone is! Like I saw someone I knew at Walmart and stopped to chat and they didn’t even stop! They just went ‘hi’ and moved on. Like????
And when I moved here I made cookies for the neighborhood, cuz that’s what you do and the first place I went they said “we don’t eat things with sugar” and shut the door.
Like why do y’all hate everyone so much?
I’m Canadian and am also confused
Well yeah everyone knows Canadians are the friendliest people in the world
I’m from Indiana and I’m pretty sure if you don’t talk to someone you know In Wal-Mart for at least 5 minutes you go to jail
No but that would still be rude in kentucky
You are expected to talk for at least 15 minutes, say goodbye (like, a “take care y’all, tell me how that knee is doin”) and then you talk for another ten minutes, move a little further apart and say goodbye again (“well I better get going tell your nana I said hi”) and then you talk for a while and say goodbye one more time (“I’ll see y’all at church on Sunday/school/Jo-mart/Nana’s funeral”) and move on to the next person
And don’t even get me started on food etiquette
It’s not a south v. west thing, it’s a city thing. That’s why New Yorkers are the purest version of this. And it’s why I get both sides.
I grew up in a small town in Northern California, and it was proud of all the small town things – “you can leave your door unlocked” and all that. I got a job for a while as a bank teller, and this coworker of mine had moved there from New York.
I liked him (I tend to get along with folks) but a lot of people thought he was rude. “short” “impatient” even “brusk” were some descriptions of him, not just from our coworkers, but from the bank customers too. They complained because he always rushed them, never wanted to make small talk, etc.
One day I was working next to him, and I heard him verbally pushing yet another customer along, just racing him through the transaction against his will, and I thought, I’m gonna say something to him about it.
As soon as the customer left though, before I could say anything, my coworker goes “damn I hate people like that, get to the front of the line and want to tell me their whole life story. So RUDE!”
So I say something like, how is he the one that was rude to you?
And goes, like he can’t believe how stupid I’m being, “ not to me, to all those people in line behind him that want to finish up here and get on with the rest of their day! You’re at the bank, you know why you’re here, you step up, you do a polite greeting and get the fuck down to business. Everybody has shit to do, and they can’t do it until you shut up about your life story that zero people drove down here to listen to. It’s so selfish! I can’t stand people like that”
Since then, I’ve lived in San Francisco, and L.A., and Montgomery Alabama, and Germany and Portland and Oakland and a bunch of little ass towns like Suisun Ca, and Kenwood and all kinds of places, Santa Cruz and Rohnert Park. And I’ve thought about the thing that guy started me noticing.
It’s true. The closer in to a city (and the larger the city) the more the concept of polite changes from “how you are effecting the person you are communicating with” to “how you are effecting the people packed in around you”
In Oakland there are like, zero grocery stores (Oakland is literally documented as a “food desert”) and so the best grocery store in Berkeley is also a favorite grocery store of Oakland residents and it is… full.
You’ll spend a full 30 minutes in the snake of cars circling around in the parking lot waiting for somebody to finish shopping and leave so a parking spot opens up. Once inside, it’s more of the same. Shopping carts are cart-front to ass cheek. You literally can’t reach onto a shelf for a box of cereal without waiting for somebody to give you a break in traffic. Sometimes you get stuck standing in a single spot for several minutes, boxed in on all sides. I’ve only been twice, and I swear to all holy gods that if I saw two people trying to catch up on chit chat while we all tried to maneuver around them, I would been reaching for my murdering stick. It’s called skype motherfuckers, go the fuck home and talk to each other, jfc, the rest of us are trying to make a deadline for some other shit we gotta get done today.
Now, going back home, to small town Nor Cal, yeah, I don’t want to be rude, I’m gonna stop and say hi, I’m gonna ask about your family, I’m gonna rack my brain and remember that you had a sick cat or a trip you were trying to take or an interest in boats, and I’m gonna ask about that shit, fuck yeah tell me about how the tomatoes are coming in this year, I hear the birds are worse than ever.
Anyway, city folk ain’t rude, they just polite different; suitable for city life.
This is such a great explanation, and really important.
one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid™ is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.
DO THINGS HALFWAY. NOW YOU’RE 100% BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE BEFORE.
One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.
But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting. Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible. Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.
Gen One of My Little Pony was fantastic because it understood little girls enjoyed playing dress-up and braiding hair but would then turn around and use those prettied-up little horsies to play out some of the most vicious high stakes storylines ever conceived.
everyone I know raised as a little girl and given only supposedly “girl appropriate” toys acted out the darkest most brutal shit with them, I swear to god, every time I played at girl’s houses when I was a kid they got out their barbies or ponies or polly pockets and weaved a tale that typically had at least two murders, a suicide pact and a satanic ritual.
Wait… so… people raised as boys didn’t roleplay horses enslaving humans/blood sacrifices to the gods/trojan war style epics over lost loves? Weird.
I love how many comments this exploded with about the grotesque horrific shit kids acted out with their barbie dolls and horsies.
But no, the thing is, toys and cartoons “for boys” never focused much on realistic emotional strife, especially not back when I was younger. Heartbreak and betrayal and lost love were all designated “feminine” territory for some reason, so the kids placed in the “boy toy” camp were just focusing on action, action, action with little pepperings of interpersonal drama, like, Lord Skullfucker’s gonna blow up the sun any day now but it turns out he’s Commando Dragonlaser’s long lost brother, so Commando Dragonlaser is only going to tear out Skullfucker’s kidneys with his bare fists after a fleeting, manly moment of regret.
Kids shoehorned into the “girl stuff” slot, on the other hand, are just given plastic housewives in plastic mcmansions and little happy kitties to work with, and the expectation from adults is that they’re going to act out sweet, saccharine stories about baking a cake for the boys when they get home from a day at the office. Unfortunately for those adults, all types of children are equally likely to crave stories full of shocking twists and thrilling peril, including death, and all kids have wild-ass imaginations with no filter, so while the story of Lord Skullfucker is “technically” more brutal, on paper, the drama kids come up with when they’ve only got the horsies and barbies to work with are more believable and visceral.
Obviously this is just my personal view from my personal experience as one person who had both girls and boys as childhood friends, but it seems to be backed up by other people’s stories almost every time the subject comes up.
I remember reading a very eloquent post a while ago about how teenage girls will go on to read and write really dark, fucked up fan fiction about their favorite cartoon characters and it was analogized to having a paper shredder in their heads. Everything aimed at girls is saccharine and sweet while women and girls are faced with the reality of misogynistic violence that becomes more and more visible as they grow from children to teens. Play as children and fan fiction as teens and adults gives them the outlet for their thoughts and desires that come out when they’re shoving cartoons through the mental paper shredder.
In order to make a relationship last, you really have to flow with a person as they change. Give them space. My friend always told me about his grandfather who was with his wife for 60 years before she passed. His grandfather said that through all that time, his wife changed so much it felt like he had been with 8 different people by the end. But he said the secret to making it last was that through all those changes, he never suffocated his wife with his own idea of who he expected her to be. Rather he loved, fully, every new woman she became.
Harry Potter had a crush on Cho specifically because she was good at Quidditch, and could go toe to toe with him as a seeker. Harry Potter started developing feelings for Ginny after she joined the Quidditch Team, and their first kiss happen as a celebration of winning a important match for the house cup, and she will later become a freaking professional quidditch player.
Harry Potter is into jocks. Harry Potter is into jocks that, specifically, could kick his ass at his favorite sport.
I feel like this is an important thing to know about the guy.
So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history.
Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service.
theres an entire subculture on youtube with cocky middle aged adults using some uninterestingly designed persona talking sprite that they commissioned some artist on deviantart for, and use them to make “rant videos” and talking about shit absolutely no one cares about and they are the most boring things on youtube with a huge following
and they’re always videos like this like watch out this talking drawing is going to pwn feminists with his epic ideas for 12 minutes
As a society, we need to stop assuming that everyone enjoys drinking alcohol.
Lmao @ people who think I’m ridiculous for this post. I’m defensive because alcoholism is a huge issue. Everywhere in the world. Not to mention, I know it’s hard for some of you fucks to believe because of how widely accepted alcohol is, but there are a HUGE amount of people who have personal issues with alcohol. Either being recovering or previous alcoholics themselves, having a close personal tie with someone who abused alcohol, growing up in an unstable alcoholic household, having DEEPLY EMBEDDED family or spouse issues ALL because of alcohol. FUCK OFF with your me being so offended bullshit. Just assume people are sober till you find out on **their** terms they aren’t. Don’t expect that everyone likes to drink. Just like you wouldn’t expect that everyone likes to smoke cannabis, why would you do it with alcohol? (That’s rhetorical, it’s obviously because basically everyone assumes the entire world enjoys drinking). It’s not hard. Don’t offer people drinks unless you know they drink. BYE.
My favorite response when I tell people im straight edge is “what? You’ll never drink ever? Not one drink? I don’t believe you.” And they’ll laugh And I’ll look them straight in their fucking eye and tell them both my parents, and my aunt are recovering alcoholics. The rest of my family? Has never tried, nor ever got the chance to recover from their addiction. It’s by some miracle my mother is alive right now because she drank so much her liver stopped working. She was in a coma for two weeks. The doctors almost gave up on her. My dad was an abusive drunk and then turned to hard drugs and that certainly didn’t help anything. My 3 younger sisters and I were almost put into foster care because of the both of them. I was only about 14 at the time. Making my youngest sister, 7. And because of all of this my family went bankrupt and we were almost homeless. All because of drinking :)
That usually shuts them up real fucking fast but, I shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone. I shouldn’t have to defend my (perfectly healthy!) choices!
If someone tells you they don’t drink, it’s for a fucking reason. Don’t be a dick. Casual alcoholism is a huge fucking problem in the world and its scary that most people can’t see it.
Also, some people just… don’t like drinking. There are people out there who just genuinely do not enjoy drinking alcohol. They don’t like the taste, they don’t like being impaired, and they have no desire to try to force themselves into enjoying it just because someone else thinks it’s “weird”.
There are all kinds of reasons that someone might not choose to drink, and all of those reasons are valid. There’s nothing wrong with it, it doesn’t mean they “can’t have fun”, and I guarantee you they’re not judging you for drinking. And if they are? It’s definitely not as much as they’re being judged for not drinking.
Don’t try to force people to drink. Don’t assume everyone likes to drink. And if someone says they don’t drink? Don’t force them to explain why just to get you to stop hounding them.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid booze and the particulars of someone’s reasons are none of your business. Nobody deserves to catch crap because they don’t imbibe.
the culture of alcohol is disgusting and i want it to stop
For me it goes like this
“hey bud, great party we’re having, want me to grab you a brewski or a little drink? ”
“no thanks I don’t drink.”
“would you rather a toke?” (I’m not much of a drinker myself but I smoke cannabis like a chimney and always offer)
“no thanks.”
“Cool, grab some soda or whatever you want, we also have snacks. Have fun ”
I’m going to offer my intoxicants but I won’t be offended if you don’t partake. (More for me right lol )
me watching monsters inc as a kid: how did it take so long for anyone to figure out that human child laughter not only produced energy like screams, but was more effective, and that children aren’t actually dangerous at all?
me watching monsters inc now: monsters incorporated, a multi-billion dollar corporate giant, stood to make extra profits off a scream shortage because low supply with high demand makes it possible to charge a fortune for a necessary commodity and everyone has no choice but to pay the high prices because they can’t go without electricity. Therefore Monsters Inc, as well as any other major powers that may have existed at the start of the era of using scream energy, fabricated the idea that only screams could generate sustainable energy sources in order to create artificial scarcity, because laugh energy was far easier to obtain and far more efficient, and therefore stood to lower the value of energy due to surplus. They also fabricated the idea that human children were toxic, in order to a) make other monsters too afraid to go near them to do research and possibly discover the secret of laugh energy, and b) to make monsters so afraid of going near them that there is a shortage of scarers, making it harder for rival companies to rise up and create competition. Even in the monster world, capitalism is based on lies, greed and cruelty, and even monster companies have no qualms about using and abusing children to maximize profits.
