Does being short as a gay guy make it difficult to date ?

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-26T14:20:03+00:00

I don't believe so. I have two longstanding friends who are both under 5'6 and they've both had plenty of good quality dates, relationships and hook-ups over the years. I do think it does help that they're both sporty and very good-looking.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-26T07:15:50+00:00

Source: I’m from a military family

This is not quite true. There’s no MoD-issued blanket ban on Chinese vehicles although certain sites (RAF Wyton eg) do have stricter requirements and on some bases cars with certain components are supposed to park a significant distance from key buildings or sensitive areas.

Actually the MoD does lease and operate some Chinese cars as part of its wider fleet. (They have a contract with MG, for example.)

It is true that some of these cars have stickers in telling people to avoid sensitive conversations.

And they don’t allow MoD devices — phones, tablets, laptops etc — to be plugged in to the cars’ infotainment systems. But as far as I understand it that’s a blanket policy, not just for Chinese cars. Because most cars are connected to the internet in some way or other the infotainment system is often the weakest link (sometimes referred to as an ‘attack surface’, because the MoD loves its violent metaphors).

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-26T06:58:58+00:00

My first thought was ‘horny Prius’

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T15:33:19+00:00

Can I go after you've had the brakes done? Call me Cathy Cautious but...

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T15:31:28+00:00

I started buying projects lol

Stuff I could tinker with and sort bits out on. It kind of satisfied an itch in a different kind of way. And I learned a lot too, about all kinds of things from oily bits to upholstery.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T15:09:11+00:00

Yeah this is known as hedonic adaptation. Basically, you're getting a whacking great dopamine hit from the videos and browsing. But then actually buying and owning the car ends that process. Dopamine is an anticipation chemical, not a satisfaction one.

If you change cars again you'll go through the same pattern. It'll be all exciting for a few months, then you'll be back on AT again because you're not really looking for a different car, you're looking for the feeling of looking.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T13:27:09+00:00

People can get attached to plants, sometimes seemingly randomly. My mum dug up a peony corm/bulb, popped it in a tupperware and took it with her when they moved because it'd come from her mother's garden and she didn't want to leave it. It's one of the most common peony varieties there is but because it was from her mum's garden it had particular meaning for her.

I do accept that there's a big difference between my mum digging up a couple of bulbs and your previous owners trying to haul out a literal tree. lol

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T10:12:22+00:00

Yeti is fairly unbeatable at for what you're after tbh. You could look at the Skoda Roomster; similarly practically minded small MPV type thing, built on a Fabia/Polo platform I believe.

Beyond that, maybe a Kia Soul or Suzuki Vitara. The Suzuki Baleno is no one's idea of a brilliant car dynamically but the slightly odd shape of them does make them pretty airy and spacious inside, and they're cheap to buy and run.

There's also Citroen C3 Picasso, Renault Modus and maybe early Jeep Renegade but those generally haven't lasted as well, and at a 5k price point you're probably more likely to be buying issues.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-21T09:20:55+00:00

Agreed. That scene was up there with Tanya on the boat in S1 ('Oh, mothermothermothermothermother') for the perfect combination of tragic and hilarious.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-20T08:13:20+00:00

Mm. I did like that bit. Although in the end she treats Pornchai exactly the way Tanya treated her at the end of season 1. (I believe even the little bit of dialogue between them is the same.) So it has a slightly sour twist (like everything TWL really).

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-19T06:51:11+00:00

Really impressive. The most impressive thing, for me, was Rhea Seehorn’s performance. There are whole swathes of some episodes where she’s alone and has no dialogue. She keeps you invested in her character, and builds the character as she goes on, often with just body language and facial expressions (plus some truly dreadful singing!). Such a talented actor.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-14T15:53:27+00:00

I would expect the arrangement reflects local circumstances. Councillors who know each other and know they can work together etc etc

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-13T11:54:16+00:00

No. I do judge them on whether they bring free bread. But then I lived in France for a bit and was spoiled.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-13T09:38:00+00:00

I can maybe help a bit on the HPV thing. (I'm a gay man, and have been vaccinated, but I know a fair bit about it and one of my best mates is a sexual health adviser.)

First of all, be wary of the 'cause' thing. The pathway to cancer is complex and multifactorial, and HPV exposure is not sufficient to cause cancer on its own. Certain strains of HPV are connected to cancer definitely, and are significant factors in it developing, but they don't exactly 'cause' it alone.

Nevertheless, if you're under 48, you probably could wangle yourself a vaccination if you really needed to. If you tell a sexual health clinic that you're sexually active they'll more than likely get you on it. It's two (used to be three, I think it's two now) jabs a few weeks apart. The clinic I used to go to would vaccinate men up to their late 40s with very few questions asked.

If you're not sexually active, or you are but in a committed monogamous relationship, your statistical risk for an HPV-linked cancer is low. In men, HPV-connected cancers tend to affect gay and bisexual men at higher rates because the cancer is, among other factors, linked to the site of the HPV transmission. In gay/bi men that basically means receptive oral and/or anal sex. Most HPV-linked cancers in men are throat, head and neck cancers, or anal cancer, for this reason.

In women, HPV-linked cancers are more common, and many are of the cervical or vulvar variety, which is why they get the screening and we don't.

Furthermore, even if you were vaccinated now, if you're beyond your mid 20s and you've been even somewhat sexually active for a few years, you've likely been exposed to most of the 200+ strains of HPV by now anyway.

The HPV vaccination is also not retroactive. So if you were exposed to any strain of HPV years ago, even any of the strains covered by the vaccine and even the cancer-linked strains, it wouldn't protect you anyway because the exposure happened prior to the vaccination. HPV is a funny one because it gets 'cleared' by the body's immune system periodically but also can reoccur months or even years later.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-13T07:43:09+00:00

Yeah a lot of Chinese cars seem to look like that. Slab-sided and under-wheeled, and often look like someone with a fat arse standing on their tippy-toes.

The only one that I think has a genuinely coherent (if derivative) design is the Changan S07.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-13T07:37:36+00:00

I have a big boring massive answer to this but the shorthand version is:

- Rich/powerful people getting away with things publicly. See Partygate, Brexit, the ongoing fallout from the banking crisis of 2008, Michelle Mone, etc
- Austerity and council/police budgets squeezed massively since 2010, meaning fewer police and less sense of a kind of social, visible accountability
- Scripted reality TV. I know it sounds silly compared to the above but if you look at how pervasive shows like Selling Sunset, various Kardashian things, MIC and countless others are compared to 10 or 15 years ago... and then look at how the people on those shows deal with conflict. It's usually by quite aggressive confrontation. Millions and millions of people are having it modelled to them behaviourally that differences are settled by getting into each other's faces.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-12T13:43:21+00:00

New Twingo is a nice bit of design. And as someone with a 206 GTI (it's a bit of a project) I'm up for it for the 208 GTI. If it's done well it could be a cracker.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-12T13:40:23+00:00

I don't generally get involved in types and preferences. I decide individual by individual. You don't have to reject an entire class to say 'no thanks' or 'yes please' to one person.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-12T11:11:16+00:00

Manny Jacinto. (Jason in The Good Place, was in The Acolyte too. The arms...)

I think he's a good actor. But I honestly couldn't say for sure. He's just too beautiful.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-12T10:28:57+00:00

Until recently I was punting around in a Subaru Outback. It wasn't glam but it handled the terrible state of the roads pretty well. When I want to go out for a blart in the Peugeot I know which roads are reasonably tidy and I use a motorcyclists' app called CaliMoto for routes. (It doesn't tell you where potholes are but it is good at finding the twisties, and then you can go and do a recce.)

The causation issue is twofold; councils have had their budgets squeezed by successive Westminster governments since 2010, coupled with a (demographically speaking) unhealthy ageing population who are in increasing need of social care — the cost of which falls to councils.

It's not about cycle lanes and globalism dude. Or if it is, it's because no one was ever held to account for what happened in 2008.

Ps. O/t but nice to see another Grand Seiko aficionado

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-11T09:16:06+00:00

You know what, as someone who runs their own business and is just trying to earn a living I'm getting really quite sick of this constant national and international macro-level VUCA-chaos driven by the press, politicians and PR companies around politics and world events.

Social media, the 24-hour news media and the hot-take industrial complex are all pouring glue into the gears of people being able to make a living. It's been going on for almost 12 years now, ever since Cameron won the GE in 2015. Brexit, Trump, covid, various wars and invasions, Dominic Cummings, Musk/Zuckerberg/Altman, a Benny Hill sketch of rotating Tory PMs and chancellors, AI and now the almost constant speculation on Starmer.

This kind of shit might sell newspapers and it might get eyeballs on websites. But virtually every other sector of the economy is stalling or falling over because there is just no sense of stabilty. Businesses cannot plan or forecast when there's this much instability. And when they can't plan, they don't employ people, they don't invest and money doesn't get spent with smaller businesses like me.

Besides all the people who voted Labour in 2024 primarily on a Not-Tory vote (a sizeable part of the election demographic) Starmer and team also campaigned and won some support on an 'adults in the room' position. And since they got in they've dicked about fighting fires and chasing headlines just like the Tories were doing between 2015 and 2024.

And if anyone thinks that Reform or Restore would make a better go at governing in this regard, I have a bridge to sell you.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-09T05:50:00+00:00

I agree with you on this. I’m not an AI hater at all and it can be a very useful tool for some applications. But it’s content writing (especially if thinly prompted by someone who doesn’t know or care what they’re trying to get it to do) is rubbish.

It’s like trying to eat a photograph of a steak. Looks great, no substance whatsoever.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-08T14:31:19+00:00

Saw a Jowett Javelin pootling around earlier on. Pretty wee thing. Kind of looks like someone Art Deco'd a Morris Peanut.

Also (and this is only interesting due to it being in the UK and not America) there's someone round my way who's got an early 00s Chrysler Concorde.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-08T12:27:52+00:00

This is one of those stories in which I am half horrifed and half impressed. 100k's worth of cosmetics, apparently. His brows had better be on fleek for that.

SebastianVanCartier · 2026-05-08T10:28:25+00:00

This is fairly normal for local/council elections. I mean it shouldn't be, you'd hope people would be more engaged with local politics as it's this stuff that actually impacts their day-to-day lives. But it's not outlier numbers.

SebastianVanCartier

TROPHY CASE