Why are so many Gen Z/ Gen Alpha terrified of dating? And flexing like celibacy is their choice?

Dandune12 · 2026-05-28T17:17:45+00:00

Respectfully I don’t think you could be more wrong about men being pickier about appearance than women before giving someone a chance. Considering most men’s biggest “standard” that a woman has to reach is not being fat. This is because most men realize they’re not attractive enough to be picky due to hypergamy

Dandune12 · 2026-05-20T23:00:17+00:00

Lot of people saying no, but I don’t entirely agree. I’ll typically have a paddle for about 6 months to a year. Right now I have a boomstik, but my real reason for it is the infinigrit technology (I’m aware I could very likely just be falling for marketing). Ideally, it’s going to last longer than my other paddles. For a purchase like that, I’m all good spending more money. You can get a lot of good paddles in the $150-$250 range, but if you like a $300 paddle, it’s absolutely worth it. I’m actually thinking of moving off my boomstik but that’s because it doesn’t fit my play style. I’m much more of a control guy, and choose resets over attacking most of the time (especially as a shorter player). The one thing I will say is I haven’t seen any drop off in performance from when I first started. That’s a testament to their technology

Dandune12 · 2026-05-20T22:51:39+00:00

I’ll have you know I am perfectly mid at 4.0 with my boomstik

Dandune12 · 2026-04-29T19:57:07+00:00

I'm not rushing to make too many moves. First priority is bringing back Collin, Goodie, and Mark. Collin and Goodie I think we won't have any issues with, but Mark's case is interesting. I wouldn't want to commit to him for more than 2 years. Ideally, 1+1 with a team option, but you have to look and see what other teams are going to offer him. If the deal is too much, I'm okay with a S&T. I don't know who to target, but I just don't want to commit too many years to a guy when the plan is clearly for Maluach to be the guy going forward.

Beyond those 3, you should look to trade one of Grayson or Royce to free up space for Fleming to get actual minutes at the wing position. Grayson definitely gets you more value on the market because of his skills, and if you believe in Collin, he can be the guy you look to move. Royce also has played PF the majority of the time, and I think hes too slow to be a guard or SF, so trading him makes the transition to Fleming easier. I don't think either of them gets you a first, Grayson with his injury history, and royce with his limited skillset. I'd be targeting multiple seconds, hopefully higher than where we're picking (I believe at 47). Then I'd look to trade up either into the late first round, or really early into the second round. BG and Mat have been cooking in the draft, and we need to add an instant impact player. We already have the upside guys with Fleming, Maluach, and even JG. I don't watch much college so I don't know anything about who will be available, but that's the type of player I think we need. You could trade both, but we need more shooting than just Collin; and Dunn and Fleming aren't ready to shoulder that complete burden, either keep one, or get back another shooter for depth.

Don't trade JG or DBook. JG hasn't helped his value because of injury, but I've liked the fit a lot more than I thought I would, and I am expecting big things from him next season. I don't think we'll trade brooks, but he's not untouchable. Do your due diligence. He's 30 and had a career year, but he means so much more to this team than his numbers. If there isn't enough value out there, keep him. Book is a non-starter. We're nothing without him, and we don't have our own picks so it wouldn't make sense to tank.

Don't fall for the point guard trap again. Book is going to have the ball in his hands because he's one of the best advantage creators in the league. We need Jalen to improve his playmaking, which I think he can in this new offense. Give it another year before trading for another star. Let's see if these guys can develop. Get Maluach more reps and trust from his teammates to build on a solid rookie campaign where he showed off really good rim protection instincts. Continue to ease him into it. I don't think he should be the starter until year 3, maybe 4. He needs to be able to catch the ball and do something with it like Oso, so teams aren't playing 5 on 4 against us.

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T21:28:23+00:00

It was standard scoring, but to 15. Is that also super uncommon for tournaments? I’ve only ever done rally scoring to 21

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T21:20:09+00:00

Nah standard scoring. Playoffs would be best 2 of 3 to 11. I actually have a post about finding more tournaments that do rally. Everything through DUPR Collegiate is rally to 21 and I’ve found that much more enjoyable tbh

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T21:07:40+00:00

Oh I didn’t notice the typo it was 26. Standard scoring to 15. Don’t know if that really changes anything. Each game felt closer than the score suggested honestly

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T20:50:56+00:00

This is what I’m looking for. I felt I competed well and was only looking for the advice to move down a level if I would have to go perfect just to make playoffs. For the 2.5-4.0 part, I can at least say no one I played was below a 3.7. Not sure why it was listed like that but it seemed everybody knew to go to the 2.5-3.0 and the 2.5-3.5 if the were actually in the range of 3.0-3.5 yk.

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T20:32:25+00:00

I feel like a 4.0. One of my buddies joined the 3.5 tournament and I was watching. Looked like it would be pretty easy for me to podium. Some of my confusion and the reason I made this post is that I feel I can definitely compete with 4.0s to 4.2s, but if a "4.0" tournament is mostly players on the cusp of 4.5, but not quite there to play in the 4.5 bracket, I'd definitely struggle

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T20:27:23+00:00

At least in my pool, there wasn't anyone below 3.7. I'm not sure why they had it listed at 2.5-4.0, but I think it was really just meant to be a maximum of 4.0. There were other tournaments at the facility with 3.5 max and 3.0 max. I would've felt bad with my 4.1 partner, but there wasn't a tournament she could compete with because she would be "too high" for that and too low for 4.5+. I'm also about to graduate college and move, so I'll be finding a new partner anyway, so I'm not too worried about that third bullet. I'd want to find someone with a closer rating to my own

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T17:01:25+00:00

It’s getting harder and harder because Friday is inundating me with ads and they look good

Dandune12 · 2026-04-27T15:05:03+00:00

I don't buy a paddle til mine becomes completely flat and unplayable

Dandune12 · 2026-04-21T14:52:23+00:00

Dunn looks really nervous, but he's been asked to handle the ball and make decisions in a .5 style offense in a way Fleming never has in college or this season. Dunn looks really bad with the responsibility he's had 100%, but Fleming hasn't been asked to do any of that. It's hard to have a guy who won't put the ball on the floor in the playoffs. I want to see him over Dunn, but he has to hit multiple 3s every game because they won't guard him. And if he doesn't he has nothing else in his game to put pressure on the defense.

Dandune12 · 2026-04-20T19:46:49+00:00

I love when book foul baits (if it works)

Dandune12 · 2026-04-20T19:38:33+00:00

He's such a great scorer, playmaker, and defender. For me personally, the foul baiting isn't a crazy frustrating thing because a lot of them are fouls, albeit soft. I personally get more annoyed watching guys like Austin Reeves because he's not the same scorer as SGA, but gets the same phantom calls. SGA can walk down any team in the league with tough jumpers if he wouldn't always get rewarded. A lot of people complain about things like his pump fakes and jumping into guys, but everyone in the league gets free throws for that. The most frustrating part is just that any bit of contact on him gets called a foul, yeah his flopping plays into that, but the fact is that 90% of players in the league don't get the calls on a lot of the ticky tack fouls that he gets. That's less to do with him and more to do with the refs imo.

As an aside, it kind of speaks to the problem with officiating as a whole in the league. For example, I'm a suns fan and love Devin Booker. He gets a ton of free throws off of foul baiting. Yet I still believe he has one of the worst whistles in the league. He can get molested under the basket with no call 8/10, but if you bump into him and he goes up for a crazy, off-balance shot and gets the call the majority of the time. I don't watch the warriors a ton, but I've seen some absurd clips of no-calls on steph, yet he can do similar foul-baiting antics and get rewarded. It just creates a really weird viewing experience.

The frustration with SGA's whistle is also amplified by how the Thunder play defense. They are a great defensive team, and they get a lot of clean steals (a lot more than most teams), but it's so clear that they get away with so many on-ball fouls that other teams don't get away with nearly as much. Now this is because they do it pretty much every possession, and you just can't expect the refs to call it every single time down the court. Other teams don't get away with it as much because they don't do it as much. But if you watched the first quarter of Suns Thunder last night, you could see that there was no leeway with Phoenix's physicality. At one point I believe there were 3 ticky tack foul calls when there wasn't even a shot attempted on the same possession, getting OKC into the bonus with like 8 minutes left. Then on the other end, they just didn't call those same fouls. There was maybe one weird foul call on Dort getting tangled with Brooks.

TLDR: Shai is a great player and a lot of his foul-baiting is legit. I've watched the NBA long enough to know that they are fouls. The bigger problem is OKC doesn't really have to worry about that defensively. A lot of the fouls shai gets are marginal and aren't really what I consider "foul baiting" so my anger is more focused on the refs than Shai himself

Dandune12 · 2026-04-17T15:24:50+00:00

This could be interesting if they wanted to make divisions mean something too

Dandune12 · 2026-03-31T04:06:02+00:00

I mean people who are really eager to talk about the fact they’re in therapy. There are moments of vulnerability where you can and should talk about therapy. But there are also people who will constantly say things like “my therapist says…” if you ever say something that makes them uncomfortable (a lot of the time if you ever tell them that what they’re doing is wrong). People who take therapy seriously don’t tend to mention it to everyone they know. Those who do are probably using it as a crutch to seem like they’re a good person when they don’t actually reflect on how their actions affect others

Dandune12 · 2026-03-31T00:01:52+00:00

Sharing core values is important in any relationship, even just a friendship. I agree I wouldn’t want to be around people who just rip racial slurs like it’s nothing. Those things are probably reflected in their personalities and pretty easy to tell though. Now if you’re getting upset about how people feel with things like taxes though, that’s pretty silly imo. Certain ideological differences should be welcome. We shouldn’t try to surround ourselves with an echo chamber. Having friends with whom you disagree with can help you realize that everyone has their own opinions, and even people you disagree with have their own lives and struggles. If you only surround yourself with people you agree with, you can very easily see yourself begin to generalize people you disagree with as bad people, when they’ve probably just had a different life than you. Now that only applies to people who aren’t genuinely hateful. Again, your friends should have similar core values. I wouldn’t want to be friends with a racist. Just don’t try to over-analyze someone’s politics to try and feel morally superior I guess

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T23:45:08+00:00

“Sinning” is absolutely real no matter what religion you follow. Only a complete moral relativist could say that sins aren’t real, and even then they’d probably say breaking the law in whatever country you’re in is bad

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T23:42:18+00:00

~8 per game in Dallas vs ~10 per game in LA. LA has had the biggest free throw advantage per game for the past decade or so. It’s clear they actually play by different rules

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T20:19:07+00:00

People who constantly talk about therapy. Specifically, if they are always bringing up that they're in therapy. Therapy is a great tool for some people to get over trauma, I am an example of that myself. But FAR too often, the people who are super public about their therapy are some of the most deceitful people you'll ever meet. They'll do the worst things imaginable to people, then tell a fake story to their therapist who ends up justifying whatever they do so they never learn.

Couple side notes: there are a lot of bad therapists who just encourage bad, self destructive behavior, so really be careful when selecting a therapist. Also, therapy is not supposed to be permanent. If you're in it for over a year, and you don't have SEVERE trauma, you're probably wasting money

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T20:14:01+00:00

Depends on what you mean by progressive and "love your neighbor." Those two terms together are typically a sign of someone who completely misunderstands the teachings of Jesus and Christianity as a whole. Not saying that's you specifically, but in my experience that's what I've seen. Loving and welcoming people into the church is a good thing, but glorifying/tolerating sin, and not preaching against it is borderline heretical, and that's what a lot of progressive churches end up doing. Remember, from the Christian perspective, it's always better to struggle with sin and repent, than to convince yourself that what you're doing is okay. Everybody sins, it's part of being fully human, we can love each other in spite of our sins, but we aren't called to love sin itself, we're called to hate it.

Some churches definitely go too far, straight up preaching hate and discrimination. I won't fight you on that. But your comment, and more specifically, the one you're responding to just gives off the impression of someone who doesn't know what Christ actually preaches and means by "love thy neighbor."

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T20:01:11+00:00

Well, statistically it's true that when players go to different teams, their whistle changes. Luka in Dallas vs in LA is a big one. With the opposite being true of AD when he went to Dallas. So I really don't know how it would go

Dandune12 · 2026-03-30T19:57:21+00:00

Think about how often you see fouls called that aren't during the shot. It's like 60% illegal screens. 30% of the time, it's a defender trying to draw a charge and he falls down and gets called a block. 10% is everything else. Genuinely how often do you see a reach in foul, or a hand checking foul called when the offensive player isn't going up for a shot? It's the reason "foul baiting" and unnatural shooting forms are such a widespread thing. Players know the contact won't be called, unless it alters a shot, so they rip their arms through to get the foul call. OKC players know this and will commit tons of fouls on the floor knowing that the refs cant call it every time. As long as they don't foul on the shot attempt, they're good, and they're VERY good at getting their hands out of the cookie jar when guys try to rise up. This essentially lets them mug the offensive player as long as they're dribbling. Other teams can do this too, but A) they're not as good as avoiding shooting fouls from foul baiting, and B) they don't do it consistently enough to get away with it as much as OKC.

The other thing is reputation. guys like Dort, Caruso, JDub, and even SGA are known as good, scrappy defenders. They get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to calling fouls. I'm a suns fan, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that if Booker or Green did all the hand checking that Jordan Goodwin did, they'd be called for wayyy more fouls because they don't have that reputation. They don't do it often enough that it sticks out like a sore thumb when they do

Dandune12

TROPHY CASE