Nonbinary (he/him) ∞
I agree having a close friend who you can trust is more important than having someone you can have sex with.
But these things are not mutually exclusive. My fiancee is my best friend and I trust them completely. I couldn't be in a romantic relationship with someone who I didn't trust and who wasn't my friend first and foremost.
I've been in romantic relationships lasting years which were both sexual and non-sexual. In my previous relationship lasting two years, you could count the number of times we had sex on one hand. It was more like we were to best friends who also cuddled, kissed, slept in the same bed, and other romantic things.
I hadn't thought about this but you're right. If it was chocolate instead of mint chip it would be the classic neapolitan
I relate to this a lot.
I entered this thread expecting a lot of pushback and am relieved to hear a lot of people share my experiences.
I will reiterate what a lot of other people have said here: we must take care not to misdirect our anger towards dogs when in reality it's the owners at fault. But it's also perfectly okay to not like dogs or want to be around them in my opinion.
I personally don't think it's fair to hate any animal, including dogs. But I do think it's fair to expect that dogs owned by people are trained and under control, especially when off of private property.
To add to this conversation, something that often gets my blood boiling is when on walks in nature reserves and seeing dogs off of leashes in areas marked as requiring dogs to be on leashes, or worse dogs off of leashes in areas where there are not meant to be any dogs at all.
Many of these areas are sensitive wildlife areas. Usually for me as a birdwatcher, these are areas with ground-nesting birds. It's horrifying the amount of nests, eggs, and chicks of endangered or otherwise threatened species that get destroyed by dogs off of leashes.
Also, the people who don't pick up their dogs poo. Or bag it up and then throw that bag on the ground/into a nearby bush??
Edit: Grammar
What issues did you have with the Fairphone?
I see a couple of other people talking about them in this thread too so I checked out their website and it seems like a great concept honestly but I'd like to know if any issues to possibly expect if you wouldn't mind sharing.
Regarding the argument of toxic masculinity, I'm going to try and provide some clarifications as I do not believe the debate happening in this thread is in good-faith and I believe there are some misunderstandings of toxic masculinity is.
My experience growing up, and I have heard from others that this is their experience too, is AMAB folks were encouraged to drink bitter drinks like beer as that is often designated as a "manly drink" whilst being discouraged from drinking sweeter drinks like ciders, cocktails, and wine because those are "girly drinks" and therefore a threat to one's "masculinity".
My experience growing up AFAB is that I was not encouraged to drink beer as much as the AMAB people within my family, though I was certainly never forcefully stopped from drinking beer. My brothers and cousins were actively discouraged and made fun of for drinking "girly drinks" though.
I think certainly there is a non-zero number of AMAB people who felt forced to learn to like beer despite not liking the taste initially, possibly learning to get used to the taste later.
I'm surprised to see people shoo-shooing away the toxic masculinity argument so quickly. Nobody should be judged for the alcohol they consume nor should people be forced to like one particular flavour. Toxic masculinity is an issue which negatively affects us all regardless of our gender.
How prevalent this issue is I do not know. I would be interested in hearing other people's experiences growing up and their earliest exposures to alcohol to understand the issue better.
I'm a vegetarian.
I was, and still am, surprised by how often people will go into a long rant justifying why they eat meat to me as soon as they find out I'm vegetarian. All the while I'm just sat there, not saying anything, because I literally do not care whether or not they eat meat.
Me being a vegetarian is a personal choice for me and myself only. You do you. I don't care. You don't need to explain yourself to me. It makes me feel so awkward.
People will often ask me why I'm a vegetarian too. But it feels like a very personal and heavy question to ask someone immediately after finding out they're vegetarian... I don't especially want to talk about animals dying all the time and how it makes me sad especially to strangers.
Edit/Addition: It feels like a lot of focus is brought on how vegetarians/vegans force their views onto other people but my experience personally is non-vegetarians/vegans trying to force me into conversations about this topic.
A bunch of my friends at university, including my now fiancee, frequent craft beer pubs. Apparently craft beer tastes better than the big-brand lagers and beers.
Over time I've probably tried tens if not over a hundred different beers. But to me they all taste the same. To me they all taste overwhelmingly like straw which I assume is actually the hops.
My fiancee likes the taste of beer so much he drinks non-alcoholic beer on occasion. He also drinks black tea and coffee which makes me think maybe he tolerates/enjoys bitter tastes more than me.
There is certainly an argument that can be made that this is a toxic masculinity thing. I don't associate with people who are extremely self-conscious about their masculinity so I can confirm this certainly wasn't the case for my group of friends. They just genuinely like the taste and the vibe of craft beer pubs.
Good on you for taking the steps to try and remove the sources of your anxiety from your life. Social media is certainly addicting and it's a hard cycle to break free from.
I've been slowly deleting my social media and other internet accounts for a few years now. Facebook was the first to go probably half a decade ago now. I bailed Twitter around a year before Musk took over. I stopped using my Twitch account but I still need to delete it. I am in the process of weaning myself off of YouTube.
I started this process mostly due to privacy concerns and me feeling out of control of my personal information. Algorithms served to further push me away because I struggle not to engage with depressing topics which results in controversial and depressing content being pushed on me by the algorithm which severely affected my mental health. The final straw is all these platforms becoming almost completely unusable due to their need to feed the illusion of constantly growing profits by adding unnecessary new features that bloat the platform, adding ever more intrusive adverts, and locking features behind paid subscriptions.
These days I only use Mastodon and Lemmy. I also have a subscription to Nebula through CuriosityStream which has been scratching my YouTube itch so I'm aiming to delete my Google account completely soon. I also use Discord, just for keeping in contact with friends, but ultimately I'd like to bail from that platform too.
Ultimately this decision has freed up a lot more personal time for myself to pursue my existing hobbies and new ones. Overall I am much happier.
I've always seen a lot of debate about whether to play FES or Portable which always made me dream for a proper remake in the future which combined the best of both games. Instead the debates will now be between three different games.
I was very excited when I saw Persona 3 Reload but am disappointed they are not including content from either FES or Portable. Personally I don't think I will buy it just because I would just be sad that I wasn't playing as the female protagonist.
I do not trust Niantic as a developer and will not try out this game despite being a big fan of Monster Hunter.
I played Pokémon GO for years as well as Pikmin Bloom for a little bit. Both games are buggy messes and I find them to be more disruptive to me going out on walks and exploring than helpful.
Pokémon GO for years has been a mismanaged mess and I finally decided to uninstall after their recent remote raid changes. I haven't looked back. I have found myself enjoying my walks more without it.
the games themselves can be very good, but it's always despite its gacha mechanics, not because of it
Exactly! I couldn't have said it better myself.
I've been playing Slay the Spire recently for the first time and I've been having a lot of fun with it!
It is often said that being in a position of power over others corrupts people. But I believe Robert Caro when he says "Power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals." Essentially, being in a position of power makes you more of what you already are.
Therefore, I believe there must be situations where people having power over others can be positive. But having established positions of power lends itself to having one bad actor reach that position and causing great suffering, and worse, they often have the power to change the system to make it so only bad actors can have power over others.
So, I find it difficult to counter the argument you have presented in this topic. Is there any way we can prevent bad actors from reaching positions of power over others?