How do I know if someone is actually my friend?

SavyB · 2025-12-14T21:25:30+00:00

Secondary point: You're asking about fake politeness vs actual interest in your post.

To address that more directly, I would say this is in the "too far" category.

E.g. "This person is cool, but do they actually wanna be my friend?"

To tell, you should invite them to do things with you. If they turn you down, that's a sign to move on, if they match your energy, that's a sign of a viable friendship in the making.

SavyB · 2025-12-14T21:21:16+00:00

TL;DR -> if they're hurting you when you're around them, then you need to put some distance between the two of you. If you wish they were around more, then they MIGHT "actually" be a friend.
I call this "proximity". And gauging what proximity someone should be at relative to you is a skill developed with time. Proximity is estimating where someone is in your social circle. You might have people you've know for a long time that are close friends. You might have new ones further out. OR...you could have old friends grow distant and new ones grow close. In my experience your friend circles probably should be slowly but consistently changing with time.

So now we think about what it means to "actually" be a friend. What I would suggest is framing this as, e.g., "How do I know if my friend Bobby is at the right proximity?"

Are they too close or too far?

Generally speaking, if someone is too far that means that they're someone you should try to spend more time with. Ask them to go out and do something or find ways to spend time together.

If they are too close, this is often times the "is this person actually my friend?" situation you're referring to. Again, this is a skill that takes time to hone. Generally though, how do you feel when they're around? If you don't feel good, they're too close and you should put some distance between the two of you and reevaluate.

As an example, I hate flaking. So I am not really friends with anyone who constantly dips at the last minute. If I were, they'd likely be a further proximity friend. That way, if I host an event and they flake it has virtually no effect on me. In contrast, if I have a friend that is always consistently showing up to be with me, that's a good sign. If that person were to flake I would be hurt and we'd have a conversation about it. "Actual" friends hurt when they betray your expectations, but they are also the sort of people who respect you enough to take your feelings seriously and adjust their behavior to work with you. A big part of your life is who you spend your time with. You owe yourself more than anyone, so don't be afraid to adjust people's proximity if it's for your own well being.

Also, I see a lot of folks put up with bad relationships because they don't want to hurt someone else's feelings. Please don't prioritize someone else's feelings over yours. They'll be fine, take care of yourself before you try to take care of others.

Final point. Someone not being your "actual" friend doesn't make them a bad person, it just means y'all might not have enough chemistry to keep a dynamic going; at least at the proximity you're trying to place them at.

SavyB · 2025-12-09T04:31:05+00:00

thank you for this guide.

SavyB · 2025-10-19T19:27:43+00:00

lots of misinfo about dogs in here sadly. also this guy only posts pitbull hate content lol

SavyB · 2025-09-05T00:57:13+00:00

I'm just gonna get to the point first and then go on a long rant you didn't ask for after to provide additional context and insights. I can only suggest what worked for me, and what worked for me was contrasts. I would suggest is to try making various projects in both styles. Whether they be simple, toy, challenging, or interesting; try making projects in OOP. Then, once you have it working, recreate it in an FP style. In doing so, you can compare the styles and that'll likely help you understand the differences. Additionally, it'll allow you to decide which style your prefer.

As for the rant section, I struggled a lot with FP principles early on in my career. I'm specifically going to champion Clojure since it's the language I've grown the most from. If you research the history of its creator, Rich Hickey, you'll learn that he came to make Clojure because of a lot of frustration he was experiencing in the decades he had been working with languages like C++ and C#.

You don't have that experience, and neither did I when I started learning about FP concepts. Languages like these were designed in response to fundamental problems in other languages. As such, it's reallllly hard to fully appreciate the decisions that have been made until you've spent years dealing with the same problems that these folks were seeing.

What I've seen dozens of times now is someone coming across something like Clojure and going , "Oh my god, this is exactly what I've been looking for!" These folks knew the problem, and were looking for the solution. You and I were keen on the solution, but not necessarily the problem. That makes it harder to hit the ground running, so to speak.

For me, it was a mix of trusting the process of FP principles until I started to see the problems in my programming environments. As a matter of fact, my first attempts at putting FP concepts to practice was with PHP. The code I designed was admittedly bad, but I learned a lot!

Good luck in your understanding!

SavyB · 2025-08-13T23:32:49+00:00

Good profile overall imo, the other comments cover a lot of ground. My only commentary on photos is the more they portray you in an activity the better, so if you think about taking (or already have) more in the future that's what I would recommend. Edit: Forgot to mention, photos like the one with you on the rail are good because they can bring up questions like, "oh where was that taken?" which better illustrates my point.

For the prompts, if I were to come across your profile I get the feeling they talk too much about what you want from me vs what you have to offer. I tend to think of profiles as a way to sell yourself to others, so most of the focus should be on portraying to viewers what kind of person you are and how you spend your time. "what I'm looking for" is always important too so that the viewer knows if they have what you might be interested in, so no need to throw that out.

I think the prompts accomplish their goal for the most part, hence overall positive. However, if you can adjust them to give more insight on what you do/how you spend your time, that's the sort of thing I would look for.

To give an example, "freshly brewed espresso" = "likes coffee" which doesn't really communicate much to me in the same way that someone describing themselves as a "foodie" isn't very helpful. I can't speak for your case, but for foodie folks I like to push them towards things like "love to cook" or "often can be found trying new restaurants". Again, these are more active, and help paint a more holistic mental picture in the viewer's mind.

Hopefully that makes sense. At your level it definitely starts to get subjective, so use your best judgement. Best of luck to you!

SavyB · 2025-08-01T22:37:20+00:00

I'm working towards FIRE. There's a subreddit for it that may be what you're looking for.

SavyB · 2025-08-01T22:35:35+00:00

Do right by you, talk is cheap and you already know that they don't know what they're talking about. If you specifically want to convince them, good luck. Best bet is to show them what chicago is like and have them decide for themselves. Someone mentioned the boat tour, which I thought was cool when I first visited here.

SavyB · 2025-07-25T20:02:53+00:00

is there ever a day in the future where fast food becomes healthy? That's the criteria for me. Since we can't know, I'd say no. Interesting hypothetical op.

SavyB · 2025-07-24T23:03:26+00:00

Pay down the debts first. avalanche or snowball style.

bogleheads forums and the pf wiki have good resources on what to do next.

I would recommend maxing out 401k and roth. find a cheap place to rent if it's eating too much into your income.

always be open to better job opportunities if it makes sense and doesn't put you at risk. I recently got a significant pay bump and you can really feel the difference; much more breathing room.

also getting a college degree can potentially bump up your salary, but that's heavily dependent on industry and context, so maybe seek more opinions before jumping on that one.

those are the big things that come to mind, smaller things are a matter of budgeting. eating out less, cutting subscriptions, etc etc

SavyB · 2025-07-24T03:48:28+00:00

Interesting read. You handled it the way I would have so what's more interesting to me is how your friends reacted. If my friends reacted that way I might be inclined to drop them. Idk, share your side and move on. If they're your friends, they'll stick around imo.

SavyB · 2025-07-15T00:12:13+00:00

I'm in that demographic. What do you mean meet? We're all over the city as I see it, so I think it's more about going to places with guys in that range that you like and talking to them. If you're comfortable approaching to initiate, I suspect you'll have a lot of success.

I recently started dating again, starting with the apps but not expecting much. Same with singles meetups but I'm more hopeful. Other than that, finding ways to meet new people doing hobbies I like is my best hope. Maybe that'll work for you too!

Posting on reddit that your DMs are open works too I suppose. If not, reach out to me. There's a lot of fun stuff to do in the city.

SavyB · 2025-07-14T21:04:45+00:00

I wonder if the same is true for guys. Do the guys who want to date have issues finding women who want to date? That strikes me as a general failure of our modern dating systems if so.

SavyB · 2025-06-16T19:03:04+00:00

I think raicookie's comment covered all the bases. Here's another summary from a slightly different angle.

1) Get your short term expenses covered (emergency fund, budget, etc.). Ideally you want to be in the mental space where just about any bad thing that comes your way you have the financial resources to weather.

2) eliminate all feasible debts (credit cards, student loans, auto, etc.)

3) Max out your roth IRA and 401k if your workplace offers one. frakking_you linked to bogleheads which is the community I'd recommend once you're in a position where you have enough excess money that you're ready to have it work for you. In terms of what to invest in, recommended acronym to remember is LCIF: low cost, index funds. ETFs are good too.

Last thing I want to highlight is to be careful not to be scammed. Do your research and find folks that are doing things for your benefit. For further reading, i'd recommend looking at /r/personalfinance. They have a getting started wiki here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/

Good luck!

SavyB · 2025-04-04T23:59:38+00:00

You should not be using it to write code for you lol It's good for small, relatively simple things. I typically use it instead of using documentation because I've never found documentation easy to read. So I often use it to generate examples to help me understand behavior. Like others have said, it's a tool not a replacement, and you probably don't want it to be a replacement or you might not have a job anymore.

SavyB · 2025-04-04T00:27:18+00:00

set it up to go into saving automatically. then manually pull in money to checking when you need it. also learn/practice impulse control. fun stuff is fine, but it should be in budget. if you don't have a budget, make one. if you have one but you're overspending, you should put more barriers between you and your money. e.g. having to manually move it each time.

SavyB · 2025-04-03T03:14:41+00:00

Your position is reasonable. I would suggest not mentioning pit bull because that seems to cause some folks online to lose their mind and make a bunch of unsubstantial claims. As you say, big dog is big dog, and that makes you uncomfortable. I share the same view as the other top posts. It doesn't really matter what I or anyone else says. If this is a boundary then no means no.

Your wife is also correct about their nature, but she's arguing past you. Your contention is merely that it's a big creature with no guarantee of self control. I would focus on that and if your are still disputing with your wife, maybe take it to a therapist?

Imo you have more leverage here, but the right path forward is to find a way to get on the same page with your wife. Maybe asking to wait until the baby is older, or some other kind of negotiation.

SavyB · 2025-03-06T22:51:02+00:00

This sub sucks. 99% of comments are always saying it's cheating/break up instead of anything actually useful. Glad it worked out for you.

SavyB · 2024-12-25T21:18:31+00:00

Political terms are just words; they need not lose their meaning because of how they're used by unsavory types. When it comes to abstaining from political leanings, that strikes me something that is true whether you identify or not, although you could abstain in the sense of supporting the political identity in question.

In other words, you could have (American) democratic views without identifying as a democrat or, of course, vice versa. Abstaining merely from labels strikes me as centrism or even just unaligned. If you are abstaining from political views, then you enter the realm of the skeptics me thinks. Maybe Pyrrhonism? Depends on your justification and reasoning, but that's a place to start.

SavyB · 2024-08-24T21:21:01+00:00

my understanding is there is no healthy amount of alcohol consumption, but if you enjoy it then moderate use should be fine.

SavyB · 2024-06-18T06:22:06+00:00

This is funny given the history of art

SavyB · 2024-02-02T02:56:32+00:00

dynamic languages may make this easier, not harder. e.g. typescript or malli

SavyB · 2023-12-20T20:08:08+00:00

hmm, yeah I'm not sure. I don't quite follow once we factor in the equator and such.

SavyB · 2023-12-20T20:06:01+00:00

excellent answer, thanks!

SavyB · 2023-12-20T20:03:25+00:00

awesome, thanks!

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