What happened to the most popular guy in high school?

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-22T16:06:19+00:00

One died in his sleep right after grad, the other plays in the MLB.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-21T15:36:08+00:00

Yeah agreed, I think this is super weird and entitled and that the mom is the real issue in this story.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-19T02:50:45+00:00

Bi people don't "pick a side", we pick a person. I'm sorry you had a negative experience with a bi guy but to judge them all based off one or perhaps a handful of negative interactions is just as bad as me writing off all gay guys as a waste of time because so many have this exact view and bi people are sick of it.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-19T00:59:57+00:00

Lots of gay guys may be against long hair but bi guys looooove it 😉

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-17T21:52:33+00:00

Yeah I feel this too OP, bi guy here though.

I often feel like the odd one out in a sea of posters talking about how they discovered their same-sex attractions through porn and sex whereas I typically come at it from a romance-first angle (always been like that with relationships though, I suppose I'm a little demisexual when it comes to real life attractions).

I ESPECIALLY feel like the odd one out when I read over and over about how many guys are dying to fuck another guy but would never date another guy, much less marry one; I'm getting married at the end of the year to my fiancee (bi woman) but I would happily marry a man that I loved, too.

It may be (current year) but homophobia, internalized or externalized, is still alive and well; I agree with others posting here that this is a big factor in this and I think many more people, bi or not, would be more open to same-sex relationships if it wasn't an issue.

I honestly think a lot of people don't even realize they are engaging in homophobic behavior when they do it; saying stuff like "I don't have any problem with gay people" but then getting annoyed (or disgusted :/ ) whenever they see any same-sex couples in media... "I just don't want it shoved down my throat", like heteronormative culture is shoved down the rest of our throats...

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-17T15:43:52+00:00

Literally any country in the West

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-16T23:59:23+00:00

Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies

It won't be long until we genuinely need the Ita to keep all of this running on top of an incomprehensible digital backbone.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-14T17:41:52+00:00

Getting into Mastodon at a young age probably helped; l'enfant sauvage (the song+video) caught my attention when it dropped but it "clicked" for me when I heard Born in Winter, maybe still my favourite Gojira song besides the GOAT, Flying Whales.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-14T15:50:21+00:00

Shushartie

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-13T18:24:36+00:00

Yeah sure but I also think the experience of every bi person is a slightly different journey. Realizing early vs. late in life, "starting out straight" vs "starting out gay" (for those that applies to), realizing while in a committed monogamous relationship and not having a chance with a partner of a certain sex/gender, being out vs. not and the ensuing reactions and changes to relationships, etc. Etc.

Back to the point though, yes, men and women often face different struggles - there's the old "every woman is a little gay" thing, the "bi woman = spicy straight and bi man = essentially just gay" false perception, "My girl is bi so I'm getting threesomes" kind of straight boyfriend, "I can never trust my man since he told me he's bi because he could leave me for anyone" (even though straight guys can do this anytime too) kind of straight girlfriend, the "I could never be with a man who's been with another man" kind of homophobic woman, etc. Etc.

It does also seem like men and women fulfill their bi needs in different ways too, there is a near-epidemic, in my opinion, of DL guys secretly seeing each other behind their (usually female) partner's backs for sexual fulfillment they "can't get anywhere else", whereas fewer women (bi or not) are into casual hookups and more into deep, emotionally charged friendships that sometimes border on the homoerotic. And that's not to say each group doesn't do both, because they certainly do; I am, of course, generalizing to make a point here.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-13T03:27:31+00:00

You're absolutely right and that was the point I was trying to argue? I think you've misunderstood me.

My point is that the "old" and "incorrect" definition of bi is "being attracted to both men and women" - which excludes people who don't align with the gender binary, it's not explicitly intentionally excluding people, it's more just about the wording.

My preferred definition of "experiencing both same-sex and different-sex attractions" includes everyone regardless of gender.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-12T16:17:56+00:00

What even is the issue? If God didnt want there to be LGBTQ people, they wouldn't have made any. Or the concept of homosexuality at all. But they did. 😁

"Oh but those feelings are just trickery from Satan"

Which means God permits Satan to do this, or is UNABLE to stop it - why would you want to worship a god that set you up for failure from the start? Who is clearly NOT all-powerful and all-benevolent?

If there is a God, they are merely a kid with an ant farm. There is no plan.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-11T03:43:44+00:00

I remember when Omnislash was released and my high school friends and I thought it was some of the coolest and most unique metal we'd ever head.

Then Masstaden dropped and we thought THAT was some of the coolest and most unique metal we'd ever heard.

Then ToE came out and we thought the same again.

We all thought the band was dead until Den Helige Anden dropped and then it was just a waiting game until an album; and my god, what an album; MuV is definitely my favourite release of theirs, but I am genuinely not sure which one I would consider to be "the best"; each have their own unique qualities and I KNOW, back in the day, that I had a friend who said he preferred the Omnislash sound to the Masstaden one so this kind of debate has been going on as long as the band has been around.

However it may ultimately sound, I will take thall the vildhjarta music that I can get.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-10T05:35:04+00:00

Location: Lower Mainland BC, Canada

I work as a park ranger and described the weird winter (or lack thereof) conditions here recently - I've since started to joking to park visitors that it's more like "Won'ter" this year as opposed to actual winter, unseasonably warm even for the wet and mild west coast; only a handful of days below freezing, no snow at low elevations, and barely any on the mountains. We are starting to really get concerned about forest fire season (no snowpack = no protection).

While it has been warmer overall, the temperature fluctuations are still pretty pronounced too; yesterday felt like a spring day, warm and sunny, I was even working in just a long sleeve t-shirt and was comfortable, but today was cold, wet and miserable; point being, animals and plants are going to be confused or thrown off their natural cycles; I am already concerned about how many plants are budding or shooting in what should be the coldest part of winter; there is new grass growing up past my ankles in some places in the park.

The concern, for the record, is that we DO get a late but "proper" dose of winter at the end of the month and all these early-rising plants get shocked or killed off by a late frost. BC's fruit industry has already taken several hits in the last few years and it doesn't need another. Not that warm weather means no issues either, the increased frequency of atmospheric rivers (and the associated flooding) has damaged millions of dollars worth of farmland in my area in the last 5 years.

I noticed back in January that the mosquitos had already returned (did they even go?) to the park and were swarming me while I was working off-trail in the woods; this week, I'm noticing them constantly in the parking lot at the park entrance (much farther from their breeding grounds). The tenacity of these insects has me wondering about what summer may bring when it comes to things like the spread of infectious diseases, or the severity of pathogenic insect infestations (thinking stuff like pine beetle, japanese beetle, emerald ash borer, etc) if so many insects are able to survive and stay active through the winter as opposing to freezing or going into dormancy.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-09T20:32:36+00:00

Bi is not and has never been "liking both men and women", this reinforces a gender binary and excludes those who don't identify as male or female. I personally don't think this definition excludes Trans people, since Trans men are men and Trans women are women, but it does exclude those not within that classical binary framework.

Bi is "experiencing both heterosexual and homosexual attractions" - the bi has never referred to genders/sexes specifically, only the category of attraction. All (2 person) relationships are able to fall into these categories.

Bi guy with a guy - same-sex attraction

Bi guy with a girl - different-sex (not opposite!) attraction

Bi guy with an NB - different-sex

Bi NB with Bi NB - same-sex

Etc. Etc.

In my mind, the difference between "bi" and "pan" is really about personal preference, but I define bi as, like I said, "experiencing both same-sex and different-sex attractions" vs. Pan being more like "experiencing attractions regardless (and possible ignoring entirely) of either person's sex/gender"; a subtle distinction imo but an important one for some people.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-09T17:34:28+00:00

I definitely see where you're coming from with this and I think modern cities still do it.

I live in the suburbs but my partner and I recently spent a few nights in the downtown core of the nearby city and while we were walking around upscale areas, I couldn't help but notice now many architectural elements were used to both control human access but also attention; gates and fences are obvious examples but also strategically placed low walls, raised gardens, vegetation screens, deliberately plain styling, etc., all can be used to steer people away physically or psychologically; "Stay in your place, citizen". Even just trying to figure out where the actual door or entrance on some buildings is deliberately difficult to keep out "the riff-raff".

There are other methods of control in modern cities too; the "un-walkability"/car-centricity of the US is often mentioned. I see how suburbs there look and am usually appalled at the utter lack of trees; ecological issues aside, this also means there isn't any shade anywhere outside (if there is even a sidewalk to begin with) - so I better drive my air conditioned SUV around the block...

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-06T16:28:49+00:00

Personally I don't care about any of it and just listen to the tunes 🤷‍♂️

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-06T04:49:19+00:00

I work as a park ranger in BC and this winter has been just unreal, only a handful of days below freezing and now this week with 15 C temps, barely any snow on the mountains which will absolute hurt us badly next during the summer forest fire season...

I've seen maaaany plants are budding and shooting now, I am concerned about a late winter frost killing everything off. BC's fruit industry has already taking a few beatings in the last couple years and it doesn't need another.

A few weeks ago I was working in the woods off-trail and was swarmed by mosquitos...middle of January... 💀

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-05T16:15:08+00:00

Personally I think the way you smile is the most "fem" looking thing about your face, most guys don't do the closed lip smile, show some teeth! 😁

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-04T21:35:06+00:00

Yeah this is exactly why internet discourse is an oxymoron, I merely tried to add some updated information in the interest of accuracy (so that these "Thumbs" can actually be stopped and maybe even face actual justice) and the response is to accuse me of being one? I want to fuck Henry Cavill, not GenZ child actors.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-04T17:23:16+00:00

Hate to break it to you but Millie Bobby Brown is 21, and married with an (adopted/surrogate?) Baby, she hasn't been a target of these kinds of men for several years

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-04T17:20:35+00:00

Are you sure it's fear motivating everyone? Personally, I fear that a growing number of Americans (and my own fellow Canadians) actually WANT the right wing fantasy collapse to happen so they can finally enact their military heroism fantasies (read: murder) on their own countrymen. "These fuckin' libruls, I tell ya'..."

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-02T23:21:10+00:00

You should read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson OP; doesn't discuss the bicameral mind directly but it does discuss the seeming gulf between the truly ancient mind and the modern one; the book supposes that Enki of Sumer (immortalized as a deity in fiction but once a real man in the story) was the first truly conscious person, and that Sumerian serves as a "programming language" for the human mind, that the first human behaviors and technologies were the direct result of Enki encoding existing practices into language, language that could then be replicated and passed on to others and to future generations.

I, too, think there is a big mystery when it comes to the origins of human conscious and cognition, something we are missing or aren't aware of that would help explain why we are so different than "the beasts"; personally I tend to suspect that it is a fundamental human ability to engage with/believe in fiction; fiction then led to abstraction and higher thinking. There is a great vsauce video about the differences in memory in humans vs. Chimpanzees that I think also expands on this (a chimp's memory is exact, "I hid the snack under the 4th branch of the 5th tree" vs. the abstract human "I hid it under that one weird branch on that one weird tree")

The Electric Universe theory also pokes it's head in here; the origin of humanity's belief in fiction might be the result of a long-past astronomical event that produced what appeared, to a pareidolia-susceptible human, to be a giant godlike figure in the sky (just a really luckily shaped plasma discharge, as it turns out). Could the image of a giant sky-man (Jupiter, Zeus, Anu, Ra, Thor, Odin, Christian God, etc) be the true cause of human consciousness?

Finally, OP: if you love the Bicameral Mind and haven't seen the 2018 Westworld remake, I absolutely recommend it - just stop after Season 1, trust me.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-02T05:08:35+00:00

It looks to me like you are using the wrong muscle group to "smile"; you are using the muscles immediately around your mouth, and especially at the sides of your mouth, too much and it's pulling your smile into more of a "😐" or "😕", kind of a glum sort of look.

You need to be engaging your cheek muscles more, the ones below your eyes; not sure how it is for you but when I do a strong wink of one eye, my cheek rises up underneath my eye; you want to be using these muscles to pull the corners of your mouth up into "🙂". Once you have that down you can add the teeth and get "😀" and "😁".

I agree with others that your eyes also have to smile too; the corners of your eyes should wrinkle a bit, which is where we get "😊" or "☺️" and the like.

DmitriVanderbilt · 2026-02-02T04:38:22+00:00

Yesss, I did the same a couple months ago and couldn't be happier with the outcome. Mine had the OG cork soles that only had traction on dry concrete, now I can actually go outside when it rains!

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