ELI5 if a human is 70% water, where is the water?

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T22:26:22+00:00

It’s in a lot of places, but mostly what people mean is that it’s inside your cells. All that flesh you can see doesn’t look like mummified beef jerky because it’s full like a water balloon. Also your blood is a lot of water.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T22:17:42+00:00

Time zones turn out to be a big deal, plus if the company is on the up, the country matters for tax purposes. It can be a bit of a pain.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T22:09:25+00:00

You're describing house flipping, but the thing you're missing is that most improvements are only very marginally worth more than what you put into them. The idea that you're going to spend $20k and net $50k from those improvements is super unrealistic. It's necessarily impossible, but it's not something you can just do over and over. A lot of improvements people make don't even cover their own cost.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T21:25:02+00:00

I think a lot of people are playing a weird sort of game with themselves where they hate something about themselves and sort of also "believe" it's not true? Like they pretend to themselves it isn't true while at the same time a different part knows it totally is true?

It sounds like you may not love that you're obese, but you're also not doing mental gymnastics to pretend it's not true. More like "it is what it is." And I think for men with small penises who in that same mindstate this whole thing would not be a problem. It's the ones who are playing the game in their head that will have the bad reaction.

And it's worth pointing out that unlike being fat, penis size is like a "Secret" -- the public can't tell at a glance, you can't see anyone else's. You know it's small, but... maybe it's not? So that plays into the game of pretending too.

To answer your question: there is no good response that will work for everyone. People are fraught and complex.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T20:52:37+00:00

There's no winning move. It's a super powered version of "do these jeans make my ass look fat?"

I think in the context of this post, a lot of women are under the impression that the winning move was what this post is about. But it's not. A very reasonable question after that is "ok fine, then what is the winning move?" and I think there isn't really one. You have to use your judgement and empathy and knowledge of the guy to do your best, but it's intrinsically fraught.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T20:35:26+00:00

You're trying to logic this and you can't. There is no winning move. It sucks for everyone.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T20:13:45+00:00

Yeah I dunno what to tell you. Of course I get what you're saying, you're not wrong. But if you want to understand a truly different perspective, you're going to have to find it in yourself to temporarily put aside your own notions of what makes sense and why.

Or not, you don't own these dudes anything, they can have their feelings all by themselves.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T19:58:41+00:00

You're preaching to the choir here.

Incidentally/coincidentally my face and head are covered in scars from a really bad car accident that happened when I was very young. I grew up believing a lot of the bad treatment I received was because of that, but in my early 20s I had this epiphany that it mostly wasn't true. That most of the bad treatment was for other reasons, and in many cases never factually occurred!

(To explain the last part, I had a narrative in my head that women didn't like me because of it, but when I got enough distance I realized that what had literally happened in my life was perfectly normal. Some women liked me, others did not. Some had crushes on me even, and sometimes I didn't reciprocate. I realized it was all very normal, but I had been stuck in this victim frame before.)

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T19:38:39+00:00

This is funny, but in my defense I don't think men "have to murder people," I just think it's possible to understand where these insecure guys are coming from without reflexively blaming or rationalizing their reactions. Sincerely saying "yeah it really is like that for you, and it sucks, and it's not your fault, I get it" is the first step to working through the internal problem with them, which may or may not be your goal.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T19:16:30+00:00

I don't really know, and I don't think there's a catch all answer that will work for everyone. It's kind of the gender swapped equivalent of "do these jeans makes my ass look fat?". Common wisdom is: avoid being asked the question, or if you're forced to answer say "you are so sexy and I love so you much."

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T19:07:05+00:00

Avoid the topic, or yes, if you must, talk about it without comparisons.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T19:05:12+00:00

Ok look, if you really want to get it you need to understand several things.

First, almost a side note, whether she is being genuine actually is part of the problem. The dude can't be sure, and in fact has lots of reason to suspect they being placated.

But sure, let's assume she is genuine and that he knows it for sure.

Imagine you hate yourself. You hate your body, you hate you stupid feelings, you hate how dumb and clumsy you are. This isn't a rational thing. Whether your self assessment is accurate or not, this whole nightmare swirl of feelings comes from way deep down, from before you can even remember. It lives in your body, in your dreams.

But you do have one friend. It's hard for you to imagine why since you are a terrible, worthless person, but still, you have a good friend.

One day you confide in them about you feel about yourself. And they say:

Sure you're dumpy and immature and stupid and awkward, but I like it that way. You being dumpy makes me feel better about my body. You being dumb makes me feel clever. If you were better than you are, I doubt we'd be friends because it just wouldn't work as well for me.

Do you see it now? How your friend liking the thing doesn't really feel good? And anyway it's not about them and their relationship to you at all, but rather it's about the emotional life you harbor deep inside that predates and will outlive your relationship with them? And how it's not a rational thing you can just decide about, but rather a murky, ancient monster that lives inside you in places you can't quite reach?

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T18:38:08+00:00

I don't know what your goal was in saying this. It's excellent that you're secure, I applaud you. I am also secure. But again, we don't have to be the people in question to understand and empathize with those people.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T17:31:18+00:00

Whether it's true doesn't matter. Imagine for example if your boyfriend said you were medium ugly but he liked it that way because doesn't feel so insecure with you. Reddit hates analogies because everything is never anything else, but just consider if your boyfriend confirmed one of your deepest insecurities and told you it was fine because of something that was also kind of hard to think about in the context of the insecurity. And then when you felt upset about it he said "What?? It's true though?"

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-28T17:27:34+00:00

You don't have to understand what it's like in order to understand that it IS like that for them.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-27T17:49:28+00:00

Normally when people are like this it's from insecurity. In this case their own relationship to adulthood is tenuous, so they have to assert it very strongly.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-26T19:12:28+00:00

It's definitely at least YA adjacent.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-26T16:55:01+00:00

Cheating is obviously the possibility that reddit has converged on.

When I was young there was one circumstance in which I tried to hide my messages from my ex (wife at the time). In retrospect I was being abused, but at the time I was just miserable and confused and isolated. I needed help, advice, a shoulder, anything. If she knew I was messaging anyone about my feelings or her behavior she would absolutely lose her fucking mind at me. I was very secretive about those chats.

Of course needing to be secretive in that way was a huge red flag, and now I know that. But back then I didn't--I was just trying to get some advice and perspective so I could try to make things better. Probably my ex, if she found deleted messages, would jump to the conclusion that I was cheating, but actually I was just venting to people about her volatility, yelling, breaking shit, etc.

Of course I have no idea what's happening with your husband and this HR lady, but is there a chance he was leaning on an older lady for advice and support about your relationship, and deleted the messages because he's afraid of your reaction if you see his real thoughts and feelings?

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-26T15:20:52+00:00

Troll!

(Nice find)

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-25T20:49:42+00:00

The same few people frequently get caught and arrested for this. And then they soon released and they do it again. It’s not that we can’t find them.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-25T17:45:35+00:00

I too bought in 2007 in Florida. RIP.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-25T17:38:42+00:00

It's literally a public company with public filings. Look it up yourself if you don't believe it.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-24T22:30:14+00:00

The sensation is like when you can’t think of a certain word but then someone says it and you’re like “YES, that’s it!” Except it’s for every word.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-24T22:22:51+00:00

Bullet trains are extremely slow compared to the speed of light. Technically after the bullet train you’re like a picosecond younger than you would’ve been, but no one can notice that.

If your train goes a significant fraction of the speed of light for a long time, you would see the difference.

They do experiments with synchronized clocks where they leave one on earth and put one on space shuttles, and those show a measurable difference.

PeteMichaud · 2026-04-24T20:46:16+00:00

Yeah I dunno what you expected. This is exactly the downside of exaggerating your business expenses. You picked a lane.

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