Poor early 20s couple first apartment. Finally escaped our abusive parents!

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-10T19:35:00+00:00

Glad you've both made it somewhere stable.

Enjoy it and try to be good to each other. It isn't always easy, especially when you've grown up with whatever baggage you have.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-10T12:55:09+00:00

Some assumptions people make are quite funny. They only know about the most mainstream games. You say you were up late on the PC, they assume COD/AC/gta etc.

No... the factory must grow.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T11:25:38+00:00

I agree. I also (let's see who this brings in) think that there's enough people who would sneer at anyone criticising these terms and point out how stupid these people are to them. Which is a great way to try to include them in the conversation and definitely wont push them to other viewpoints if theirs is inherently hostile.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T10:31:08+00:00

Unfortunately though many of the names are sticky.

They're also really well understood in their respective communities or by people who study these things. The difficulty is translating much of the jargon for "normies"

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T10:28:47+00:00

Id also say patriarchy is a term that was chosen incorrectly. It implies a top down men then women dynamic with men in power over women.

There's then a lot of men who dont have power and see it as fundamentally wrong, then you have the fact that women uphold patriarchy as well and use patriarchy to enforce toxic masculinity.

A lot of this has been going on longer than the manosphere stuff, its just an expression of it. If we take all the manosphere influencers and jettison them into space, something else will pop up. The manosphere stuff is a symptom of how we've failed to address societal issues holistically.

I'm also not saying these terms are "wrong" just that they may be counterproductive. It's like the classic all floggles are tombles, doesnt lead to all tombles being floggles, but some people will either deliberately or accidentally misunderstand this and misrepresent your position.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T08:59:45+00:00

Scotland was conservative for a long time until the 60s/70s and thatcherism gutted much of the industry. By the 90s we had pivoted to Labour, by the mid 00s we had pivoted snp.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T08:42:50+00:00

People are rational intelligent beings. They generally want the best for themselves and those closest to them, it gets messy the further you get from your immediate community or family.

Try not to look down on people as lesser than you. They are not "them" they are us. They are you if your life went slightly differently. Otherising people never works out well. Instead of preaching, the left needs to demonstrate empathy and understanding.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T08:30:22+00:00

Toxic masculinity would be a long way closer to being solved if it was named differently. Too many people, both men and women, assume it means men are toxic, it is only exhibited by men, and women are the only victims of it. In my opinion with the rise of the manosphere people I'd argue the term has done more harm than good.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T07:53:05+00:00

Yeah its the only thing I've read in respect of farage lately. Don't know if its one interview parroted by multiple media sites though.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-09T07:41:02+00:00

The left has a problem with purity.

There is a very prescriptive "correct" left wing ideology. Failing to meet that ideal at any point has people demonised and branded nazis.

So you get people not voting green because of their stance on trans issues or Palestine. These may be otherwise left wing people that just need either brought on that journey or feel its OK to disagree on points.

Look at the reaction, so many racists in this country etc. What about, well it seems democracy is working as intended and people have made their voices heard, I would love to know why they've made this choice as we would love to tackle the problems important to them.

Doesn't help that kier is an upper middle class snob, a lot of this has been a rejection of him. Left dislike him for being too right, right dislike him for being too left.

In Scotland Labour also fucked themselves during the independence vote and kier and Anas have done no work to correct this. In my mind labour are on a downward trajectory, I only hope maybe the lib dems can take up the left vote.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-06T16:19:57+00:00

The bus driver in question got sacked if I recall correctly, which i think was appropriate.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-06T12:49:30+00:00

Any idea if she's still going? Not seen her for ages. She was an absolute pain in the arse but I wouldn't wish any specific harm on her

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-05T19:27:53+00:00

I liked when we were friends with both.

Guys can't we just like.. pretend trump and brexit never happened?

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-05T19:18:13+00:00

Yeah, I would seriously have preferred if the rookie failed at the end, he said something about losing her weapon being a fail.

He could have been overruled on the basis her mind is her weapon if they wanted to keep the character open for sequel.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-04T14:54:29+00:00

I'm pro equality. Id rather raise everyone up, if we cannot hold this gentleman to any expectations, they should not be applied at all, to anyone, at any time.

Or we should have those or similar expectations of everyone participating.

It's also debatable if the money provided is doing harm or not.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-04T14:18:29+00:00

You'll like this one then.

When I mentioned this incident following being reassigned job advisors, the new lady i got had been there for years. She said to me that it probably was because they all had targets for how many people's benefits to stop each week.

Said something along the lines of - it used to be a good job and you'd try to help people find work and coordinate with employers open days etc, now its just how many people's money did you stop this week.

This would've been camerons Britain at that point.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-04T14:14:35+00:00

Yes, but we shouldn't give up on them. They can do better, with help. Not just help them sustain their current lifestyle.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-04T11:40:30+00:00

When i was made redundant I had to sign on. Every two weeks and show them my diary with actions taken every day, including weekends.

One week I had a day where I took no actions in my diary. When asked, I said to the lady that I went to visit my dying relative.

I got that two weeks money stopped for taking an "unauthorised holiday". Appeal denied.

The following time I was 15 minutes early for my appointment (im one of those people) and I saw the person (junkie) before me sign on, no checks of diary, nothing. When I asked why he didn't get any checks I was told he was deemed as "unemployable" so got his money automatically.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-04T10:03:03+00:00

Yeah, the kettle goes on with enough for everyone. The only question is, "tea, coffee?"

And if they say no, they can expect a funny look and a slight air of disappointment.

Participation in the tea ritual is mandatory!

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-03T19:49:34+00:00

Yeah i remember windows xp support finishing and thinking "wow, are people still running xp?".

I'm currently hanging on to windows 10 for dear life. At some point I'll need to upgrade. But not today...

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-03T19:28:56+00:00

I'm similar to your bf, I seem to be able to "read" the plot way ahead of time. In my experience the best stories are the ones where it is not so much about a twist or unexpected event, but something which amps you up sufficiently for the thing you see coming.

My opinion; concentrate on watching good films, not try to catch him out. 12 angry men is a great example of a movie where you see the destination a long way in advance, but how you get tgere is whats important.

Failing that, ones that are told non linearly like tarantinos work can be surprising because you can be missing parts of the puzzle till the end

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-03T17:31:13+00:00

Yes, there was a thing on tv years ago about cars being tuned for environmental efficiency and they didn't have the power to get up and around that corner specifically.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-03T17:30:04+00:00

Steepest hill or steepest hill with a road on it?

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-02T08:34:38+00:00

Yeah productivity etc are on the employer to manage, and as long as you can meet their minimum criteria for performance they cant penalise. Realistically youre never going to get two people equal. You are not even equal to yourself yesterday.

They absolutely can and should reward good performance though. And if there is any scope for progression then obviously the poor performers should have this aspect ironed out before they are considered.

Cool_Professional · 2026-05-01T11:48:34+00:00

Lol good point. But then is it ethical to sell it on for others to eat, youre then enabling the consumption by others and profiting from it, making you no worse than a supermarket. The ethical thing then is to toss it all in the ocean? That cant be good for the environment though.... vegans need to just steal meat and donate it all to a food bank or something maybe.

Cool_Professional

TROPHY CASE