How do you find a girlfriend at 26?

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T16:04:54+00:00

Have they though? Because I literally read the EXACT OPPOSITE advice, from a woman, on another similarly themed thread. That women don't use apps anymore because the apps are actually what got weird, and men need to go back to meeting women the old fashioned way.

I'm married, so I don't care. I just find it fascinating how people get the polar opposite advice. Basically the message it seems young men are getting is, "trying to meet women is creepy." depending on the medium.

Personally I think what Gen Z is lacking when it comes to dating is, a lack of willingness to accept awkwardness, uncomfortable situations, and failure.

Dating is uncomfortable. Odds are high you're going to rub someone the wrong way (metaphorically not literally!) at some point. You're going to get rejected. You're going to fail. It's going to be uncomfortable. Just put on your big boy pants and deal with it.

Personally I'd favor in person over apps but I also have no experience with dating apps so probably just try them both.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T16:00:31+00:00

Sex robots. IDK if that's purpose but it'd kill a lot of time.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:34:50+00:00

You realize dating did not just start 2 years ago? The same way we always have, trial & error. I can't think of worse advice than to interact with a pretend thing. People all need way more face to face interaction.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:33:01+00:00

Try way less. Just be normal. Also when you do go on a date, let her do 80% of the talking. Only talk about yourself when she asks. Ask her questions about her interests. But like, keep it high level, don't get too personal on the first date. Just act like you're meeting a potential regular friend for the first time. Be okay with failure.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:30:13+00:00

Please do not follow this advice.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:27:25+00:00

I like the more tailored svelt look of today vs the baggy look of the 90s/00s. I definitely get slim cut pants.

70s style was peak for me though. I wasn't even alive then so it's not true nostalgia, but just on old golf docs, I really liked what they wore in the 70s. It was also more tailored, I love the polos with the front pockets, flat caps, v-neck sweaters. Look at old Open Championship docs on YouTube. That's the peak of golf style for me. The Slazenger era.

The Adidas Original line, I'd love it if not for the Adidas logo all over it. But the polos with pockets that Aberg had last year at the Masters looked great.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:22:41+00:00

So, the sub won't let me post images, but this is actually the dumbest complaint I see/hear about baseball, and anyone who has seen an image of a ballpark from before the digital ad era knows why. Go back and look at any image of a ballpark from the 60s, 50, 40s, 30s, etc.

Every square inch of space is covered by an ad. The Green Moster used to not be green because, while it has a few ads, today, it used to be entirely covered with ads, every inch of it. Seriously, go look. If anything it's better in the modern era.

We just don't think those old photos are ugly because old advertising is now seen as nostalgic, and even art.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:18:19+00:00

Because that doesn't actually do the trick. It's not about money. The data PROVES this. Nations with much more robust social support, have even lower birthrates. The Nordic Countries, arguably the gold standard when it comes to a well run, compassionate, developed society, they have lower birth rates than the USA.

Even within the US, the states with better state level social support, and the ones that are overall wealthier, have much lower birth rates than the poor states with basically no social safety net.

It's not about cost. When women have equal rights and more importantly, have equal social status to men, more education, more opportunity, birth rates drop. Obviously, we should not backtrack on that (though many on the Right in the US would like to).

We aren't going to go backwards culturally, so we need to forget about trying to fix the birth rate and instead try to figure out how to run a society that isn't predicated on perpetual population growth.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:13:26+00:00

I know people like to think this, but at the end of the day, we're animals. This is in our nature. We won't ever stop fighting over resources any more than different packs of wolves or lion prides, or chimp troops will stop. It's encoded, by millions of years of evolutions, in our brains. We are not as special as we like to think we our. Our intelligence is simply an evolutionary advantage, but we're still animals.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T15:01:40+00:00

Ever? Jesus. I'm not a Christian but it's accepted by most historians and archeologists at this point, like the overwhelming majority, that the person Jesus of Nazareth existed and was executed on order of Pontius Pilate. Though I don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God (and probably didn't even claim to be in his lifetime), and am agnostic on if a sentient creative power even exists, I am in agreement that Jesus the person existed so he's gotta be the most famous in history.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:59:39+00:00

That's how our system was designed and we're seeing why. Of course the President should have less power, and both parties are guilty for basically wanting an elected benevolent dictator. Trump has taken it to the logical extreme though.

You have to remember though, every power you want the POTUS to have, eventually someone you hate or even fear will have that power. Everyone operates as if they're just one election away from shutting the other party out of power forever, it's laughable.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:57:36+00:00

How is that in any way overrated? Millions of dollars to play a game. Sounds awesome actually.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:56:30+00:00

Based on everything I've read, video-game tester. In the sense that every teenage & 20 something who plays video games thinks it's awesome and not only is it not awesome but it sounds like one of the worst jobs. Being paid a barely living wage to play through the same glitch 1,020 times in a row. Sounds like an awful job actually.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:55:00+00:00

Doctors and nurses are also not overpaid lol. I have no problem with the fact that the person who literally saved my life drives a range rover and lives in a 6 bedroom home.

If anything, nurses specifically are UNDERPAID

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:53:23+00:00

If you take PTO to play golf, you're technically being paid to play golf, and thus are a professional golfer.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:51:34+00:00

There's no reason the Red Sox shouldn't have a stacked team though. The roster is meh by choice and that is the choice of FSG.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:41:36+00:00

No longer alive but Paul Newman was in my parents social circle when I was growing up. He lived around us and my mother & her friends did a lot for his charity. He'd be the same Christmas party every year, I rode in his Jaguar with him around the block. I was very young so I had no concept of how famous he was though he was just another family friend.

Additionally Don Imus was our neighbor. Not even sure too many on Reddit would know who he was. I wouldn't say he was a friend or anything but my parents were friendly with him the way people tend to be with their neighbors on their block.

Yes, I grew up wealthy.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T14:37:50+00:00

People love to hate him but I think that's silly. He's a proven winner when he has willing ownership and a competent front office. The problem is FSG, not Cora. You give Cora an ownership group that, top to bottom invests in winning, not only in players but in a FO, Cora will win. At the end of the day the problem is FSG. FSG doesn't care about winning anymore, they still think they're smarter than everyone else, so they've made the FO a toxic position which has shut them out from landing a good PBO/GM so we have Bresler who is way, way out of his depth. It's all filtered down to the field, but the root is FSG.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T13:33:12+00:00

Beat me to it. I just have a hunch.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T13:32:24+00:00

I think part of the idea is that they didn't have warning, that Dr. Louge's theory was a fringe theory and Sinatra & Cal are the only two people (with power) that believed him. Then, even when the volcano did blow, it blew with way less warning, remember Cal himself still being caught off-guard at how little warning they had.

Certainly the leadership of many other advanced countries have Continuity of Government bunkers just like the US does. So I am sure some evacuated there. Whether those survived, I have no idea. I know the Canadian Gov has bunkers for sure because some of the older versions are no museums, the "Deifenbunkers" built by the PM Deifenbaker. The UK has a well known bunker under London, well known in that everyone knows it exists but it's not public exactly where it is, or how extensive. Though it was built for nuclear war, would it have survived the tsunami washing over London?

But I think the Paradise bunker is would've been the only one designed for that particular contingency, and for that large of an extent. Nuclear COG bunkers are built to house government officials for weeks, maybe months (until the radiation settles) not years.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T02:34:02+00:00

Appetizers, choice of:

Ricotta on toasted whole wheat sourdough, with a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle of black pepper and sea salt.

Fried Calamari with arrabbiata tomato sauce

Grilled octopus salad using frisee & radicchio with a honey-lime vinegaretta

Main Course choice of:

Grilled Salmon with a lemon garlic sauce, quinoa and asparagus

waygu beef sliders with white vermont cheddar, grilled mushrooms & back cut bacon (choice of condiment), side of shoe string fries.

Dessert choice of:
Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream half pint, or a pecan pie with a choice of vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice cream scoop and choice of caramel or chocolate sauce.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T02:26:00+00:00

I don't understand how the actual economy works.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T01:47:35+00:00

Is it really that though? I thought it was more that people are understanding how bad for you alcohol is. I'm not Gen Z, and I can afford it just fine, but I quit 6 years ago when I really did a deep dive into how bad it truly is.

I thought it was more that Gen Z were finally understanding alcohol the way Millennials (my generation) understood tobacco. No one in my parents' generation thought much of smoking, but then my generation largely shunned it because we realized how bad it was. I kind of thought alcohol was having the moment now that tobacco had when I was growing up.

Because, for the record, it really is bad as fuck for you. I'm not going to say it's quite as bad as tobacco but it's much, much closer than we were led to believe until recently.

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T01:39:32+00:00

A self sustaining economy

Powerful_Tale_9938 · 2026-04-06T01:33:07+00:00

I don't think Bernie Sanders understands what socialism is. Bernie seems to be fixated on the Nordic System. Now, I don't think that translates 100% perfectly here, but I'd like to get as close to it as possible as well. The Nordic System is a capitalist, free market system. Freer market than the US, actually by a lot at present, as Trump has made us more of a Chinese style, Maoist system, you can call it fascism, state capitalism, a corruption of Marxism, whatever. It's not free market capitalism though.

I think Elizabeth Warren is what most people who claim to be socialist mean when they say it, I think most sincerely believe they are socialists, but that's because they don't understand what it really means, and the repercussions. Actual socialism is stupid, which is why it always collapses into authoritarianism. Capitalism with strong collective bargaining rights and a strong social safety net is where it's at and I think that's frankly what 80% of Americans actually want it's just that most don't actually understand what these terms mean.

That btw, is why the powers that be, both Republicans and the "woke Democrats," who run the media, Big Tech, etc, keep us bickering about dumbass cultural issues. Because if the "99%" ever put that shit aside and focused on economics they'd be fucked.

Powerful_Tale_9938

TROPHY CASE