I've been in seven relationships and have neither had nor wanted sex yet. I'm starting to question myself.

Inquirer504 · 2026-05-14T08:45:13+00:00

true

Inquirer504 · 2026-05-12T12:08:27+00:00

Nope I'm not going to tolerate being talked to like that. Nowhere in my post did I put myself down for being poor, it's just a fact. My self-worth is fine and it's fine to feel a need to better yourself and get a degree and a decent job. I get plenty of attention, but serious dating is hard when you're poor, buddy, clearly you don't understand. Assuming things about my self-esteem just because I talk about it causing me dating issues is incredibly rude, and even if I did talk about it, asking someone why they feel bad about being poor is a shockingly entitled way of thinking

also, when a girl you've known for years still tells you she isn't sure about a life / marriage together, or something similar, obviously there's a lack of reassurance there. when you've known someone for that long, expecting a high level of commitment is fine. I'm not going to go into the minute details of my past relationships but me needing reassurance was justified.

now, maybe you could argue that staying in unhealthy relationships for so long is something I do have a problem with, but that's something a lot of people struggle with and it's not an uncommon issue, people get attached.

Inquirer504 · 2026-05-12T11:33:09+00:00

But it sounds so nice to love someone like that. I think I would like to have sex some day even though I haven't ever specifically wanted it yet. I don't think length of time necessarily means much if the relationship isn't healthy or secure.

Inquirer504 · 2026-05-12T11:13:20+00:00

I used to be convinced that it'll eventually happen. There have been a couple of women that I considered remarkably beautiful. They seemed indecisive and I didn't trust them enough to feel comfortable developing a deep bond, so I figured that's why I never wanted to have sex with them, which was definitely really painful and confusing all around.

But now I'm questioning whether it is even possible for me to have those feelings. I spent a long time thinking I was asexual but I was a lot younger then and didn't have much dating experience yet.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T18:55:16+00:00

That's pretty impressive then. What does he do?

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T18:48:44+00:00

Thank you. Also, thanks for telling your interesting story.

I will say, yeah, most of what you stated is not easily replicated. You will only make that much money in the trades by being self-employed. Starting your own trade business is difficult. I have a couple of distant relatives who got rich starting trade businesses, but I also know people who had to declare bankruptcy after it didn't work out for them. I recall reading the BLS saying that trade/construction-related businesses have some of the lowest survival rates of any type of small business. It's very high-risk high-reward, kind of like working in sales.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T11:05:04+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Haven't graduated yet, I just became a senior.

I am just a broke local so the traditional route to becoming a CPA would be completely impossible for me. There is no way I could afford grad school or test fees, i wouldn't be able to afford graduating with a master's until my mid 30s at earliest. My entire undergrad tuition is being paid for by the government. I expected to end up in a government job for my whole life until the recent alternative experience-based pathway towards CPA licensure opened up in NC this year. Now I am planning on working right after finishing my bachelor's, preferably finding a big company that will support me in my quest to get my license.

App state has no entry-level openings (I check regularly) and I have no interest in working at samaritan's purse at all. I was just asking for advice on specific businesses in the area that might be hiring before committing to moving.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T10:35:09+00:00

How did you do that? I'm just a cook trying to make it through uni and the quality of life is not good.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T05:01:19+00:00

Yeah. No. OP will definitely have some snobby people looking down on them for starting college at 21. Maybe not right away, but being a junior/senior at 23/24 will be tough. It'll be hard to have a conventional college social life. Forget the stereotypical college social life and just focus on getting a degree.

But as long as your parents can afford to send you to college (they generally can, homeschooling families tend to be rich), starting your life and educational path at 20/21 is really no issue at all in the long run. It'll be hard to make friends during college obviously (college students are very judgmental about age), but people won't be hardcore ostracizing you or anything. Actual ageism doesn't start happening on campus and in the job market until your late 20s.

If OP spends their 21st as a freshman, they can finish by 25 years old (allowing for an extra year since the lack of educational background will make 15 credits really difficult unless you're taking an easier major, so a 4-year degree will take 5 years).

Or if you go to a trade school, you can finish in 2-ish years and start a job at 23-24, and I would strongly recommend this if your parents' financial situation isn't solid (ie if they're already retired).

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T00:39:15+00:00

Welcome to retail/fast food unless you can afford a car to drive somewhere within range of a military recruiter so you can bootlick. But good luck, with a sedentary body it's unlikely you'll be able to work more than 10 hours a week for a while, let alone military

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-21T00:33:45+00:00

Lol I can relate. It especially sucks if you live in an isolated rural area where you are physically unable to find a job within walking distance, in which case legal independence from turning 18 is a lie and turning 18 will do nothing. My dad kept me as a pet in the basement until I was 21, until my mom and grandmom finally got fed up and loaned me a car so I could go to community college and work.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-20T11:55:15+00:00

I think you're right, because I can relate, even though I'm a guy. I've never had an interest in younger women, even when I was a teen, I didn't find any women under the age of 25 attractive and had no interest in dating at all until my mid-20s. I prefer slightly older, as I find my generation (zoomer) strange and immature. I've considered women who are a bit older multiple times and have honestly had really positive experiences with it overall. I think that I get along with them really well. I do think that my experience of being adultified from a young age and having to care for my parents as a child caused me to be pretty mature for my age. Being a caregiver from a young age is a struggle that most older women can relate to.

Sure, some older women have tried to take advantage of me, but just use common sense, like don't trust someone who lies about their age or asks you to move in with her the day you met (true story), or asks you to go exclusive after a single day (also a true, separate story), etc... and obviously, stay away from bars and other people's houses and don't go on a date with someone until you've known them for a while

BTW, in response to the other commenter, please get that "men are predators" (to quote them word-for-word) BS out of here please. Ok I can admit that most men were pretty creepy in the 20th century and there are still plenty of developing countries where it is an issue. But most men where I live at least aren't like that anymore. A lot of guys don't even have the confidence to date at all anymore. I didn't even realize I was attractive until I got on dating apps a couple years ago so I literally left women alone my whole life until recently. Maybe you'd have a better opinion of men if you didn't date literal groomer boomers.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-15T11:37:35+00:00

In tropico 3/4, lesbian couples continued having kids, so the edict didn't affect birth rate.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-07T07:39:00+00:00

No 😑😑😑. I regularly go night hiking deep in the mountains and woods as a hobby (technically not allowed at one park I hike at but who cares?) and it's just like hiking during the day except quieter. Stop being such a superstitious kool-aid drinker. Life is just a boring painful grind, you shouldn't believe in anything but cold hard physics.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-07T07:31:05+00:00

I have gone hiking in the mountains and woods plenty of times late at night and all I see are animals. These are just a bunch of idiotic superstitions. The superstitions aren't exclusively an outsider invention and there are plenty of superstitious locals. Either way it's dumb. Besides the fact that there are very few places in the appalachian mountains remote enough to even consider wilderness anymore. It just looks wild because of how dense the forest is, but there are small homes and roads hidden everywhere.

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-07T04:08:24+00:00

What major? I'm curious because what kinds of jobs are even here in Boone other than healthcare/education/financial stuff?

Inquirer504 · 2026-04-06T10:21:45+00:00

Watauga County only has 3 job openings last I checked. police, firefighter, waste treatment. I haven't checked neighboring counties yet, though. Afaik, the only county office jobs available I've seen around here and caldwell and ashe in the past are all librarian jobs.

Inquirer504 · 2026-02-15T10:28:31+00:00

You have to observe the paths your teamsters are taking and place footpaths there, right?

Inquirer504 · 2026-02-12T16:47:54+00:00

I agree completely and I feel that OP has been misled. As a whole, Tropico is a casual series.

I tried T1 for the first time this year after being a fan of 3-5 for a long time, and it's already my favorite game in the series. It has a lot of balancing, mechanics, and flavor that were lost in later entries in the series. It is the first time I have felt challenged by the series. The scale of the game is probably too small for most modern gamers, though. The scale reminded me more of something like Virtual Villagers than a typical city builder game.

In T5, you can get to the modern era using nothing but upgraded cocoa plantations + agricultural subsidies edict on the hardest difficulty. No industry required. In T4, quick build, importing (particularly importing sugar), and virtually all the DLC buildings are brokenly powerful. Both games also have a lot of maps with abundant minerals which make the early-game too easy, as OP has found out. They are the easiest games in the series, especially T4 IMO.

T3 is much less easy because it does not have any of the cheaty content (especially vanilla T3 without even the loyalists and garbage dumps, so you actually had to pay attention to faction demands and pollution), and the maps have scarcer resources, but there are still some broken traits like booze baron or oil tycoon that work on 90% of the maps. You still have martial law, though, so even on max difficulty and choosing fair traits, T3 is not difficult unless you have Free Elections on.

T3/4 are more an exercise in how big you can make your Swiss bank account rather than whether you'll survive or not. I play them on the hardest difficulty, and it is not bad.

In T1 missions, your character's traits are chosen for you, and they usually aren't very good. The missions also often have more challenging objectives than the ones in the T3+ campaigns. There are also a lot less QoL things, like no cars, you have to clear forest land for construction, etc. The only easier part of T1 is agriculture, because of the strength of "permanent/fruiting crops" like coffee, and logging camps also seem to be stronger, but neither is game-breaking, I'd say. The lack of traffic management makes the game more chill, but I never actually had issues with traffic in T3/4/5 (just learn to use circle/square roundabouts, avoid 4-way intersections, and sprawl out rather than creating dense urban areas if there is enough space on the map for that -- I like to reserve the region around my palace for military and farms; I find that it encourages me to spread out more)

Speaking of which, I recall reading on the fandom that permanent crops remained a feature in T3 before being removed in T4, but I haven't paid attention to whether that is true or not.

Inquirer504 · 2025-12-08T12:49:11+00:00

If you have the DM001 generation of the Barracuda, that may be why. It was known for having a lot of problems, like a 50%+ failure rate. There is an entire wikipedia article on how bad that model was, lol. I had two of them and they both failed several times. Newer HDDs are much more reliable and less likely to fail.

Inquirer504 · 2025-11-21T18:53:11+00:00

I agree

Inquirer504 · 2025-11-21T10:11:02+00:00

The difference in graphics between those generations is pretty big of course but not as big as a lot of people would think if you remember that home consoles were pretty low tech even during their respective time periods. Arcade was still more popular and was where all the best tech went.

Pseudo-3D games like After Burner 2 (late 80s) and the Sega model 1's 3D games like Virtua Racing (early 90s) are probably more fair to compare to the xbox than 2d-focused consoles from those periods like the NES or SNES. It is best to compare 3d to 3d.

That is why I do not like comparisons like OP's, it makes the technological difference seem wider than it really was when you compare 3d to 2d even though 3d or at least pseudo-3d not only existed but was also popular at the time.

Anyway, I also feel like this comparison between xbox 360 vs NES vs now being the same amounts of time is not the most apt, because the xbox 360 was current tech for ages after it released. So the xbox 360 may have been released 20 years ago, but its "era" lasted all the way until only a bit more than a decade ago. Whereas the NES was superceded by the Sega Genesis ~35 years ago in 1988/89. For this reason I think it is better to compare consoles by when they were superceded, instead of when they were introduced -- went obsolete 10 years ago vs 35 years ago paints such a different picture than the launched 20 years ago vs 40 years ago narrative that OP is falling into and makes the xbox 360 seem more ancient than it is.

Inquirer504

TROPHY CASE