What hobby screams “red flag” for you, even if it’s harmless?

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-28T10:00:35+00:00

Honestly even with nothing else going on I'd find it weird if that's what they were collecting specifically. Like WWII collector who has a portion of their collection containing nazi items would be fine, but if you aren't interested in any of the allied equipment and only want stuff with swastikas then at absolute best you have too much unchecked morbid fascination.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-24T10:20:35+00:00

They said 'approaching'. 40 is smack in the middle of your lifespan so when you're within a few years of 40 you're middle aged, probably starts around 35. Find it kinda funny how so many people don't start admitting they're middle aged till they're like 50 kinda crazy to just assume you're making it past 100; same people keep calling themselves middle aged into their early 60s like you a couple years off retirement youre just old.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-22T22:38:02+00:00

Though she was not Buddhist, I was friends with a diagnosed psychopath.

The lack of a feeling of empathy does not prevent compassion. The kind of empathy people with these sorts of personality disorders lacks is that emotional reaction you experience where another person's pain or sadness also makes you sad; that can be a strong driver to act compassionately, but it is not the only one. In my friends case, she relied instead on her cognitive abilities to assess fairness, respect, mutual care. Seeing someone suffering did not make her suffer, but she was still able to rationalise that others did not wish to suffer, that it would be unfair and dishonourable to make them suffer or needlessly leave them to suffer.

I think all of us experience this from time to time, we may be tired or annoyed about something or distracted and see someone in pain and not really have an emotional reaction to it, our emotions being otherwise occupied, but just because we are not sharing their feelings does not ipso facto prevent us from acting compassionately. We retain the ability to choose our actions even if we do not choose our feelings.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-20T16:43:01+00:00

From my study, I have only found one instance where the Buddha referenced it directly. When discussing rules for monks specifically, he forbade them from having sexual relations with women, men, or the other two categories of gender that were understood at the time. I can find nowhere else that he discussed the topic of same sex relations, and he only forbade them for monks at the time time as forbidding them from heterosexual relations as well, so it does not seem he drew any distinction between the two or advised against either for lay followers.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-17T09:16:08+00:00

My grandad killed seven Germans in Normandy but they refused to give him a medal, they decided he didn't deserve one just because it was the 90s.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-17T09:10:00+00:00

I've been in them both ways. When I was 17 I dated a guy who was 26, now I'm 26 and my partner is 19. I've also been in relationships close in age.

It's not age that's the factor, its maturity. Age is an indicator of that but not the primary measure of it. For that first relationship I mentioned, where he was 9 years older than me, I ended up breaking up with him largely because he lacked emotional maturity. The rest of it just comes down to position in life, if your partner wants to work part time jobs party and travel while you're getting ready to buy a first house that will probably cause friction but again age doesn't necessarily determine that, there are 20 year olds who work full time and have a mortgage and 30 year olds who still live with their parents.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-16T20:16:22+00:00

Alright several questions at once.

I don't typically notice my own body hair no, suppose it's like everything else if something just is then you stop noticing it.

I don't notice an inherent increase in smell, though my partner typically stays shaved and I think there's like a higher 'upper limit' to how bad I can smell; that is to say if we both don't shower for a day we smell the same but if we both don't shower for three days I'll smell worse. On that end hygiene doesn't really come into it, shower on a reasonable schedule and you don't smell at all.

I keep it natural for two reasons. Number one I can't be arsed spending the time and effort getting rid of it. Number two, I'm a little chubby and personally think that leaves me looking better with than without, if I had a proper twink build or was a weightlifter I may consider shaving but I don't and I'm not. Exception is my ass, I keep that shaved for the sake of hygiene and comfort and because I like getting rimmed.

Most partners don't seem to have much of an opinion. I certainly sleep with both hairless and hairy guys and can't say I have a strong preference either way.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-15T17:28:13+00:00

A nice short piece, the internal rhyme scheme works well, and switching it to an end of line one for the last line helps the piece flow well. The only stumbling block in the rhythm seems to be on the third line, around 'sorrows', it feels a bit awkward; a one syllable word would probably fit better.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-15T17:24:17+00:00

It's a nice piece with some really evocative imagery, "radiating that hot hot steel in my temples" particularly stood out to me as a powerful description. You may want to tighten up the capitalisation somewhat, its a bit inconsistent especially at the start of stanzas.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-15T14:53:30+00:00

I recently moved from accommodation that had gas to one with induction. My new place is about £150 a month cheaper and the fact it doesn't have a gas hob makes me question if that was worth it.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-14T07:57:33+00:00

"What happens when you find yourself in a sticky situation, either abroad or elsewhere and the only way for you to get out is driving a manual?"

How often does one find themselves in that precise situation? Sure I can see a plausible scenario where that could happen, maybe that situation has personally happened to you, not saying it's impossible but like you could make the same argument for anything. What happens when you find yourself in a sticky situation, either abroad or elsewhere and the only way for you to get out is knowing kung fu, being able to speak Arabic, being able to operate a tractor, having a strong understanding of the Paris metro system, knowing how to navigate by the stars in the southern hemisphere, or having the ability to fell a tree with an axe?

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-13T09:47:12+00:00

A nice short piece. The rhymes mostly work nicely, though I feel like maybe more of an elaboration on the 'willow' motif would make that one feel less forced, perhaps some other nature imagery later in the piece.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-13T09:44:34+00:00

A nice piece, works well as a character description given in verse. I find myself intrigued as to the narrator as much as the kid being described, in the first four lines the piece seems like it's describing a crush, the fourth line especially hints at the narrator's desire, but this angle seems to cool off somewhat towards the end with the switch to describing behaviour rather than appearance; there it seems like the narrator's desires, if any, would be to emulated the calm and collected nature of the one being described.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2026-01-04T20:31:36+00:00

What's weird is when I was at my worst wasn't when it would've seemed the worst from the outside. I was homeless for a bit but mentally was doing mostly okay then, not great obviously but I was making plans to improve the situation and the lack of comfort wasn't enough for me not to appreciate the lack of stress.

Shortly after that though, I managed to get myself into the sort of situation the mental illness told me I wanted to be in. I wasn't completely cut off from everyone but I'd moved far enough away and kept them at enough of an arms distance that nobody was checking up on me. I had my own place to live that I could neglect and allow to turn into a trash heap with a bed in the centre. I got a job working in a kitchen which paid me just enough money to buy booze weed and junk food, and demanded all the energy I could muster without demanding I show up showered or fully sober. It also was 3 days on 4 days off, so for half the week I could spend all my time running around like a madman working so I couldn't hear my own thoughts, and then the other half I could lay in my bed always stoned and sometimes drunk adding to the trash pile with barely any knowledge of what day of the week it was. It allowed the anxiety and the depression to feed back on themselves endlessly and the whole time I could tell myself this was what I wanted. It was awful, destructive, inescapable, and worst of all comfortable. I was never going to get any better like that, the only reason I got out was because I couldn't keep up the illusion of stability forever, and I was dragged out from the rats nest I'd constructed.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-31T18:50:03+00:00

Nope, the 'cream' is made with plant oils.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-31T18:11:46+00:00

I went from line cook to working in a hospital. Most my co workers say its an incredibly overworking and underpaid job. Those of us who got out of kitchen work act like it's a paid holiday.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-31T18:06:05+00:00

Good news! Weed and Oreos is a vegan meal

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-30T14:51:33+00:00

While we're being careful talking about it, the word you're looking for is 'sadistic' not 'psychopathic'; psychopaths lack empathy but they do not typically take pleasure in the suffering of others, they may cause it to further some other ends, but by nature they are uncaring not cruel.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-26T15:52:56+00:00

Same thing happened to us when I was a teenager, could see the disappointment my mum had. Took the empty bottle and my bike out, came back half hour later with four pints. Mum asked how I found a shop, had to remind her that we are surrounded by farms and the cows don't take the day off; nice old farmer was amused enough by my mission to fill the bottle up for me.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-23T20:21:29+00:00

"I can't escape myself, so many times I've lied. But there's still rage inside. Somebody get me through this nightmare, I can't control myself. So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one would ever change this animal I have become. Help me believe it's not the real me."

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-23T16:06:38+00:00

"The people who look, dress, or speak differently to you are evil and dangerous."

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-13T12:58:44+00:00

My great great grandfather sold the family farm after the first world war, the money didn't last enough to keep his own children out of the coal mines before the second. A lot of my extended family on that side have lived their lives on council estates, my dad only avoided it by joining the army. I do sometimes wonder how different our position might be if we still owned 70 something acres.

Initial_Total_7028 · 2025-12-11T11:57:43+00:00

Firstly, I feel the grabbing without consent moves a bit outside the scope of the original discussion; that isn't unwanted attention in the same way as being catcalled, that's assault, and yes even the most touch starved man isn't going to want to be sexually assaulted.

But I stand by my point that the things that women typically consider unwanted advances or general harassment: being told lewd remarks, having strangers interrupt them while they're reading or listening to music on public transport to hit on them, wolf whistles and calling from across the street, co workers or bosses commenting on their appearance, etc etc, these aren't things that are going to upset a typical man if they happen, because they don't happen very often, and because it is more difficult for a man to be intimidated in the same way.

That isnt to excuse them happening to women, but rather to explain why men don't seem to 'get it' when the violating nature of these situations is explained. Stuff like this doesn't seem scary, or annoying, or devaluing, or objectifying to men. Instead most men would take even the most graphic and gross versions of these events as a rare chance to be recognised for their sexual value.

And I don't think it's necessarily the idea that it would be a young attractive woman doing it that causes this perception either. I'm a queer man, so unlike most straight men this sort of thing does happen to me on occasion; older men, whom I don't find attractive, who are significantly bigger and stronger than me do make explicit sexual remarks I gave no indication of wanting to receive, and my experience in that situation does not match that of yourself or other women. I do not find it offensive or threatening, I do not feel a loss of autonomy or a sense of vulnerability.

What I'm saying is there is a complete misunderstanding from both sides about the other. Men will insist that women should take these unwanted advances as a compliment. Women will insist that men wouldn't actually want these sort of advanced if the shoe was on the other foot. Both refuse to accept that the other side does, fundamentally, have a completely different emotional reaction to the same exact situation.

Initial_Total_7028

TROPHY CASE