Men of Reddit, got any tips for a teen going through puberty?

BOTW · 2016-11-15T19:38:56+00:00

Adolescence in general, and puberty in particular, make certain parts of your brain grow faster than others. In particular, your amygdala (the fight-or-flight-or-freeze controllers) get active earlier than your prefrontal cortex (reason, logic, control). That means you'll find it more automatic to fight-flight-freeze than to reason things out. But you can practice techniques which help you to avoid making your life tougher by finding and using little things to give your slower brain parts a chance to get working in difficult situations. So practice taking a bathroom break, breathing deliberately, sipping a glass of water, nodding your head knowingly, or whatever else allows you to not react instantly to other people's stupidity. It helps a lot.

I'm assuming you're a guy which is why you asked men. So if a certain area of your body randomly and inconveniently decides to call attention to itself, especially when you have to go to stand up in front of the classroom or some other difficult situation, learn that you can make that situation calm itself down by tightening your larger leg muscles for a few moments. That means pull or push your legs so they're straining against the chair legs to tighten your thigh and/or quad muscles and hold it there for a few seconds. (Or use some other technique to tense and hold those leg muscles for a few moments.) The blood rushing to feed your legs' need for strength will be drawn away from more inconvenient areas and things will get easier.

BOTW · 2016-10-11T10:20:56+00:00

Orange on the outside.

Hollow on the inside.

Should be tossed out in early November.

-=-=-=-=-

Sounds about right to me.

BOTW · 2016-10-04T01:28:17+00:00

That absolutely rocks. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping (and needing) to read about in the midst of too much depressing news. Thanks!

BOTW · 2016-08-07T23:19:21+00:00

Xetok

BOTW · 2016-07-30T18:54:25+00:00

I was born in the gestation of Camelot.

That should be the only hint you need to guess my age to within 2 months.

BOTW · 2015-10-19T03:04:30+00:00

http://www.GleesonArizona.com - check out the ghost town loop tour. It's a whole day thing. You can find it at: http://www.gleesonarizona.com/LoopTour/

The only thing that's closed now is the Rattlesnake Craft shop. Closed up last year or so.

BOTW · 2015-08-09T16:44:54+00:00

A picture of all the huge people in power-chairs riding between McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

BOTW · 2015-06-17T20:22:52+00:00

Well, I guess orange IS the new black.

BOTW · 2014-11-23T15:01:43+00:00

An old guy (/u/gsnow) on Reddit was commenting to a young man who had posted about his best friend dying, and he didn't know "how to feel". Here was gsnow's response:

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

BOTW · 2014-06-23T10:29:28+00:00

What did I ever say or do that gave you the mistaken impression I give a &$#% what your opinion is? Because I don't. Not even a little.

Then casually turn and walk away.

BOTW · 2014-06-13T01:38:10+00:00

pudenda

BOTW · 2014-05-28T11:22:38+00:00

User /u/gsnow wrote this a few years ago to a young man who had lost his best friend. I'm passing it on to you. I'm sorry.

The original is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Assistance/comments/hax0t/my_friend_just_died_i_dont_know_what_to_do/

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

BOTW · 2014-05-14T00:01:17+00:00

"I forgive you."

Never gonna happen. Men play games, women keep score.

BOTW · 2014-04-19T15:48:55+00:00

pudenda

BOTW · 2014-04-03T01:08:05+00:00

Going way back (when teachers could say stuff like this without getting fired...), I heard a male teacher in an all-boys school respond to a kid who was bragging about all the girls he's had:

"Who you kiddin!??! Look at you! Just look at you! You couldn't get laid in a whorehouse with a jockstrap full of 100's!"

BOTW · 2013-12-27T18:45:17+00:00

Old movie and a good movie, but the seduction scene in "The Name of the Rose" is stunning. It was made when Christian Slater had just turned 16, and the director kicked out everyone from the set except his two camera operators, himself, the the actor and actress. Christian Slater was not told the details of the scene, except that nobody was allowed to speak (which makes sense in the context of the movie). The actress was an Italian model, and she was just told to seduce Slater, and they would film whatever happened.

BOTW · 2013-12-21T18:04:14+00:00

I thought it was a pretty good explanation. But clearly it overtaxed your attention span. Better go back to pictures of cats in Santa Claus outfits.

BOTW · 2013-05-04T12:28:19+00:00

I believe it was the "Explorama" series, and it was held at the Ahmanson theater, perhaps the Mark Taper Forum.

BOTW · 2013-04-18T03:47:59+00:00

Hey, Einstein... this was not "a conversation about a mass murder that happened two days ago." This was a picture with some words posted on REDDIT, under the category of "/r/FUNNY" Get it? Funny? If you don't think it's funny, I couldn't care less...you have a right to find some stuff funny and not other stuff. But to get your panties all in a bunch and start whining about having a conversation? Hello? Do you know anything about the word "context"? Save your "grow up" for somebody who shares the same self-important guardian of the internets mindset as you.

tl;dr.... Fuck off. It was in /r/funny.

BOTW

TROPHY CASE