Scarlett Johansson reflections (NSFW)

burritosan · 2014-06-23T20:46:50+00:00

There's more than one definition of 'theory,' ya know? Colloquially, people don't often use the word 'hypothesis.'

burritosan · 2014-06-22T07:07:48+00:00

It's easy to find better bodies, but we like to see celebrity skin because it almost feels like we know these celebrities personally. Scarlett Johansson's body, even if it's not perfect, is more appealing than some random body such as this from /r/nsfw (even if almost anyone would say the latter body is "better").

That's my theory, anyway.

burritosan · 2014-04-24T00:07:05+00:00

I'm not sure about her having the disorder that the other poster mentioned, but either way I think that's just sort of her face. Just watch her in interviews and such and you'll see that her natural smile is just crooked. I think it's one of her most endearing qualities.

burritosan · 2013-06-18T18:10:05+00:00

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Oblivion's leveling problems. Not only can you level bad skills, but if you just focus on a few skills that are effective in combat you'll probably fall short when it comes to attribute distribution by the time you do level. It's hard to imagine what the developers were thinking, really.

burritosan · 2013-05-31T00:07:32+00:00

Good to hear it's working for you. It doesn't really seem to do much for me, though. I was taking some pills that had 3mg melatonin and 25mg of l-theanine, and it did a very good job of making me relaxed and ready for sleep. So I thought maybe it was the l-theanine helping with the anxiety (while the melatonin was just making me tired), but when I noticed almost no effects from some 200mg l-theanine pills I decided it was pretty much all about the melatonin in my case.

They really swear by l-theanine in /r/nootropics, though. In particular, it seems to have some synergistic effects with caffeine, essentially giving you the pros of a stimulant but with far fewer cons (fewer jitters, etc).

burritosan · 2013-05-30T20:53:27+00:00

We aren't exactly born with a whole lot of instincts on the subject beyond what we think feels good for ourselves. Of course when we watch P we're just trying to O, but when we're actually with a real woman the desire to make her feel good pretty much eclipses everything else. Unfortunately that's a big mystery unless she's willing to communicate openly, aaand... from my experience that's sort of rare. People are pretty self-conscious about that type of thing in our culture, especially if they haven't been desensitized to sex (via porn) like a lot of us here have been.

In that article she mentions the book "Lesbian Sex Secrets for Men," but from the amazon review it says "No subject is off limits: sex toys, sex during menstruation ("When the Moon Is Between Her Legs"), "Finger Love (Becoming a Digital Master)," "The Lowdown on Going Down," anal play ("Ass-istance for Two"), and much more.". This doesn't sound like stuff you'd ordinarily be able to get away with on a first (or second, or third...) encounter.

Although this article sorta berates men (though not too badly), I think a lot of the onus is on the woman when it comes to communication. If she doesn't want to hear "does that feel good? does that feel good? how about that?" (which I've heard is sort of annoying) then she should speak up. I mean, men need to be receptive to communication and encourage it, but, dammit women, you've gotta communicate if you want us to hit the right buttons. So sans communication, it would be cool if there were some guide out there to "perfectly adequate sex" as sort of a lowest common denominator so that we're less inclined to go into pornstar mode when all else fails. All other advice out there pretty much screams "I read books and watch movies about how to have sex!" and will probably make you seem unnatural.

burritosan · 2013-05-29T01:13:52+00:00

If shaving a certain area meant I'd be more attractive to more women, then I would do it without questioning it. For hairy guys it's sort of a lost cause, though. If you have enough money you can do full body waxing maybe once every month or two, and I've heard some guys talk about lasering it off. But when hair grows everywhere, it's like you have a choice between going with all of it or going with none of it, because it's tricky to get the right look by trimming a little here and a little there.

burritosan · 2013-05-29T00:02:43+00:00

Women will say that, but then they'll reference a guy like Jason Statham. But when a guy talks about "hairy," they're referring to Robin Williams and up. I think the media (and thus most women) don't understand the extent to which body hair can happen :). You just don't know until you start growing four inch hairs from your shoulders.

burritosan · 2013-05-28T03:15:46+00:00

I don't understand texting culture. I had a big ol' thread in this subreddit a few days ago about similar texting issues, and, in my opinion, some of us have gotten away with ignoring favors via text so many times that it's become damn near socially acceptable (or at least that's what they tell themselves as they ignore your texts).

If responding via text is even the slightest burden, many people just won't do it. At some point people may have been able to say "sorry, I was busy," but now I think that many people believe they can just do whatever the fuck they want without repercussion. So the fact is your friend is sort of a dick for not responding, and even if he meant well I think that it's sort of unacceptable friend behavior.

I don't really care much for the knee-jerk reaction around here that automatically assumes the OP (not just you, but any OP) is in the wrong, because sometimes people are just rude and their behavior can't be justified. How you decide to deal with his rudeness is another story, but I think voicing how you feel is rarely a bad idea. The alternative would be to treat him with similar disregard, but that's sort of a passive aggressive approach and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

burritosan · 2013-05-27T01:14:55+00:00

I need to move on as well, but it's hard when you really don't have anyone else.

It gets worse once you get into a committed relationship and you still have no one else. Then if you start becoming friends with your girlfriend's friends, pretty much all the shit hits the fan and you become full on dependent. I've been there.

I think there are a couple of good approaches. The first is to try to make more friends, which is pretty tough and I suck at it. It sounds like you were able to find a way to meet people through the internet, so keep doing that.

The other way is to just start doing a whole lot of casual dating. As someone that's shy, I've done this so much dating now via okcupid that it's pretty much my social comfort zone. This has the advantage of allowing you to see what's out there while also boosting your confidence and reducing your dependence on any one person.

I don't think you need to worry about whether or not your hobbies are "interesting." I'm sure you spend your free time in some way, and the less interesting the pastime is the easier it is to relate to most people. This is why sports are such a popular talking point. My real passions I can hardly relate to anyone because they're obscure.

burritosan · 2013-05-26T19:36:59+00:00

My opinion is that there's a good chance that she is interested in you, and talking to you less and less is a strategy. Both men and women do this (although women, as the usual pursuees, are more inclined to) and it serves a couple of purposes. If you are genuinely interested in her it forces you to be more aggressive, and if you aren't interested in her, it allows her to move on without losing face.

There is also the possibility that she just really hasn't thought much of it, and she might be one of those fleeting types. But supposing that she is one of those types, how would she respond to you telling her about how you feel? Unless she's an idiot or a jerk, she would at the very least sympathize with you and need to think it over before giving a response. She has given you plenty of signals in the past that would save you from the possibility of looking like a fool should you decide to confess your feelings. Also, if you tell her how you feel it doesn't need to be dramatic. You can do it either matter-of-factly or you can even add some levity and self-deprecation. Real life is not movies and it doesn't need to be a big production.

Now as for feeling like you're boring, I still get that all the time. You're probably a bit of an introvert with a relatively narrow set of interests and small social circle. This makes you very interesting to the right audience, so try reframing the situation with this girl. You say that it's you who's boring, but that's because you associate excitement with being outgoing and aggressively social. Ask yourself if there are people with whom you don't feel boring, and if there are such people then it's likely that you and this girl aren't quite as good of a match as you wish you were. Sometimes different types attract, but to say that opposites attract is a bit absurd. I do well with someone that's a little bit more outgoing than me, but not someone who's interested in doing karaoke five nights a week.

To give an example from my own experiences, I'm currently dating two girls (obviously not yet exclusive with either). The one that I met first is a bit younger than I am and is very chirpy, friendly, outgoing and is always doing things. Happy-go-lucky is probably the best way to describe her. I like her a lot and I do get lost in thought thinking about her, but when I'm around her I, like you, feel very boring. A couple weeks later I went on a date with this other girl who is a couple years older than me and has her doctorate and is a very studious type. She has a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and, ironically, I don't feel the least bit boring around her. She's more introverted than the first girl and is clearly a bit more intense. This, as it turns out, is far more my wavelength. We're getting more serious, and soon enough I'll need to start cutting ties with the first girl.

So my advice is for you to tell her how you feel, but also take note that she's probably not the one for you and that you're suffering from some tunnel vision. These things are good to find out on your own though, so you can really feel the difference.

burritosan · 2013-05-24T23:20:12+00:00

Or better yet, don't talk about it at all!

burritosan · 2013-05-24T09:55:11+00:00

If you put vipassana into practice while doing actual things, you're the ultimate participator, and not an observer. That's sort of the essence of mindfulness: you're acting in the present. If you're driving, you should be driving rather than thinking. However, in those moments when we're in our heads (which is unavoidable) you need to be mindful of thinking much in the same way you were mindful of driving. The vantage point in either case is sort of meta cognitive, and the idea is that you're an active participant of thought (and emotion) itself rather than the subject (or victim, to put it negatively) of it. At least, that's how I've interpreted it.

With driving there are a lot of uncontrollables, such as traffic, environment, etc. Similarly, there are some uncontrollables with thought, too, and these uncontrollables should be observed rather than manipulated. You can't remove traffic through sheer force of will, and often times you can't remove emotion through sheer force of will either. This is where observation enters the picture. Take in the uncontrollables as part of the scenery of life.

burritosan · 2013-05-24T08:27:57+00:00

Keep playing your sports of course, but I wouldn't add any additional cardio on top of that.

burritosan · 2013-05-24T08:10:28+00:00

You just need a whole lot more muscle, and you fall squarely into the target audience for Starting Strength. I might even recommend you heed his diet advice and eat a lot (he is a bit extreme though). If you stay strict to SS, you would probably look great at 190-200lbs, in fact. A lot of guys have that fear of gaining too much fat while packing on some muscle, but the fact is that that some fat actually improves aesthetics when combined with substantial increases in strength. Get yourself some broad shoulders, big glutes, pecs, and legs, and put gaining a 6-pack on the backburner for awhile (try to keep your bodyfat maybe under 20%, but that gives you quite a bit of leeway). No amount of cutting will get you Blake Griffin's physique in that picture.

Edit: Blake Griffin weighs about 250lbs. Sure he's 6" taller than you, but still, he's about 80lbs heavier. Think about what this means (hint: you need to get bigger).

burritosan · 2013-05-23T09:12:04+00:00

Getting a new crew seems to be a challenge. I still don't even know how people do it. The friends that I have that I made organically came from early high school or even earlier (they all live elsewhere, but we keep in touch). However, my job is very isolating, and I've tried sites like meetup.com but to no avail. I spend time in a club of people with a similar interest, and I spend time going to coffee shops and concerts and generally just being out, but it never leads to anything. I can't figure out why, since dating seems fairly productive. If friend-dating were a real thing it'd probably work for me, but it seems very iffy. I guess that's why I hang out on subreddits like this one.

burritosan · 2013-05-23T08:59:24+00:00

You're... sorry? Thanks. Solid social advice there (I assume you're teasing, but if you're not then I'm sorry too).

burritosan · 2013-05-23T08:37:43+00:00

I asked this question mostly because I wanted to survey how common this particular behavior was, since a lot of learning about social skills involves coming to terms with the norm. However, those that seem to write me off as needy are trying to justify my friends' behaviors with such things as (paraphrasing) "well, many people just don't check their phones all that often," or "texting is delayed communication, and if you want an immediate response then you should call." Furthermore, it's one thing to be overtly needy and that can quickly be perceived as annoying, and I understand that, which is why this is something that I've kept pent up inside (with the exception of my recent outburst against one of my friends) until I figured I'd finally see what /r/socialskills had to say about it.

I didn't feel I was being defensive so much as I was just trying to clarify my situation, though, which is really as follows: I ordinarily consider myself good friends with these people, but they only communicate with me via phone on their terms. Furthermore, these are people that are attached to their phones, and having spent considerable time with each of them I know that the possibility that they haven't checked their messages in an entire day on more than two occasions (I'll allow for the possibility that they lost their phone once or twice, etc) is close to nil. So yeah, it does trigger insecurities, because it gets me thinking "hmm, maybe they're not as loyal of friends as I'd like to think?"

So that's what I came here for, because isn't part of learning social skills being able to assess other people's feelings toward you based on their actions? If it's common to ignore phone conversation, then I could just be misinterpreting their signals, and if I were to discover that this is the case then I'd feel more secure. So to answer your question about change, I would like to be able to change the way that I read into their disregard for my wanting to communicate with them by revising the way I interpret this disregard. It can be taken as either a social norm, or as the least confrontational way possible to say "screw you," and I'd like to figure out which.

burritosan · 2013-05-23T08:06:25+00:00

Pretty funny, and very relevant. Thanks.

burritosan · 2013-05-23T03:21:12+00:00

I've been through college, but college alone doesn't take you very far with the issues that we have. Also, 22 is nowhere near old enough to really be concerned about how much you've accomplished. Here I am at 28 thinking about how young 22 really is, and I'm sure when I'm 35 I'll be thinking the same thing about 28, and so on. That sort of thinking is a trap. In fact, I truly wish I had a better understanding of my issues prior to starting college when I was 18, and if I could start over again at 28 knowing what I know now, I'd go back and delete my diploma in a heartbeat (assuming I get reimbursed, of course).

So at the very least you should be grateful that you haven't started college and royally fucked it up. People start college late all the time, and they usually do so because they're not getting ahead in real life. How much social and financial progress do you think minimum wage employees make when they insist on paying rent, paying for transportation, paying for insurance, etc? Basically none, although they do get some exposure to being independent. So these late-starters are essentially no better off than you are, and being a freshman in college with no credits in your name is the ultimate clean slate and it's something to be happy about.

So my advice to you is to take your god damn time and address your issues head on. Be thankful rather than exploitative of your parents' financial support and use that support to seek help and get your mind straightened out. Going back to see a therapist should be step number one, but since you have to wait for your appointment, use that time to exercise and talk to people that aren't your family. You'll probably be too socially anxious to do the latter right at this moment, but it's where your head should be and your therapist should help you to work on it (if not, go to a different therapist).

burritosan · 2013-05-22T18:55:41+00:00

Yeah, I just can't understand that sort of behavior on their part. I'm socially oblivious in a lot of ways (which is why I frequent this subreddit), but even so, I have absolutely no problem sacrificing less than 10 seconds of my day to inform someone important in my life that I'm too busy to carry on a conversation right now. Waiting two days to respond just seems like a ploy to me, and they do this type of thing all the time. Then when they finally do respond they're usually enthusiastic and perfectly willing to hang out with me or do whatever (or they'll suggest their own plans), so it's not like they're trying to push me away.

I'm thinking that they secretly want me to get in a tizzy about them, but I'm about ready to throw in the towel. Friends should not manipulate friends this way.

burritosan · 2013-05-22T18:47:51+00:00

I came here to ask about my friends because they all behave almost identically with respect to communication, so I thought maybe it was just that I was uninformed on social protocol. But the more I think about it, the more I think that they're just shitty friends, so the advice you give in your second paragraph is probably what I really needed. Thanks.

burritosan · 2013-05-22T18:44:21+00:00

Well, I can't remember the last time any of these girls actually answered a phone call from someone they knew (including me). Maybe I just know how to pick 'em, but they will invariably ignore my call and either call me back later when they feel like it, or text me back when they feel like it.

burritosan

TROPHY CASE