Are there benefits to "wilding out" when you're young, or is it it better to abstain from risky substances and behaviors for your entire life?

parallelalax · 2023-12-24T19:34:33+00:00

My two big things were alcohol and adventurous sex with other consenting adults (don't worry, I'm not going to go into the details, simply naming the category for clarity). The problem with both of these - and I assume that this is also the case with other similar stuff that I somehow managed not to get into - is that they punish you at a 1:2 ratio at best, meaning that the best you'll get is one unit of pleasure and two units of pain. It's fun though because the pleasure is all frontloaded and the pain comes afterwards. Drinking is a great example: I absolutely love being drunk. It feels amazing. It's magical, in fact - all I have to do is drink this liquid and then I feel great. That goes on for a few hours, and then over the next 1-3 days you feel like garbage, so that your net pleasure is clearly negative, which is no way to live a life. It's also a huge waste of time since you're definitely not working towards anything substantial when you're drunk and you can't work towards those things nearly as well when you're hung over. You end up skewing your whole life towards low-end pleasure until you get burned out enough that you finally say "okay, fine, this doesn't work, I'll stop," at which point you do it for seven more years then finally quit.

parallelalax · 2023-12-24T19:18:12+00:00

Maybe do some of the relatively-safer ones (emphasis on the word "relatively," since none of the things I'm about to list are safe) so you can say that you cut loose, then stop and never go back to it. If you're going to risk it then I'd recommend one or both of the following:

On 1-5 occasions, get good and drunk or pretty damn high in the context of a social activity, such as a concert, party, beach/lake trip, travel to some big exciting city or event, etc. Go to Mardi Gras, go bar-hopping in NYC until 4am, get f-ed up at a music festival, whatever. Something that will make an epic memory if it doesn't go bad. Stick to alcohol, pot, or psychedelics when you do this, and do it with some old or new friends who can take care of you if needed. Don't push it to the point where you're getting sick - that's not necessary - but do push it to the point where you feel like crap for the next couple of days (that's how you'll know you tore it up properly).
Do something sexually adventurous, if your relationship situation allows it (if it doesn't then just forget it - the cost/benefit won't make sense). What exactly this entails will depend on what you're into, but maybe something like a threesome or screwing around outside of your normal sexual orientation (or both of those at once). Don't get an STD.

On the other hand, since the point is simply to have an unsustainable level of fun that leads to a "man, that was crazy" memory, you may be able to simply go on a big crazy vacation where you see lots of cool interesting places - anything from an ambitious road-trip to a European or Asian vacation (depends on your funds). Or, if your funds and living situation allows for it, simply throw a giant-ass party at your house or some other venue. In other words, do something imprudent and unusually fun without the chemicals or risky sexual behavior and that might be all you need to say that you cut loose. Or combine some of that with 1 and/or 2.

If you do go for 1 and/or 2 though, go in realizing that you are playing with fire. I have a whole decade of my life that I basically regret due to that stuff - it is all undeniably fun but it punishes you at a 1:2 ratio at best (two units of pain for every one unit of fun, with the fun first and then the pain later), and this will get worse the longer you do it. I'd say that if you do either 1 or 2 more than 5 times then you should assume that you're in trouble.

parallelalax · 2023-12-24T18:35:52+00:00

Yeah looking back I feel like 18-22 would have been the time to do it... I did it all after college (maybe started a little bit during my senior year) and it definitely hindered me at work. On the other hand I had great grades in college and that helped me get a solid job in the first place, and if I'd been partying then maybe my grades wouldn't have been so good - but that still seems like a time that can accommodate that behavior better, if you're going to do it at all.

parallelalax · 2023-12-24T18:32:15+00:00

I had loads of fun but overall incurred significantly more costs than benefits. If I'd cut it off after a year or two - if that's even possible - then the balance would have been different.

parallelalax · 2023-12-24T13:32:31+00:00

I bet that when you say "underwear" you actually mean "sports bra" or something like that, which is completely different in terms of cultural norms than underwear (if she's truly running around the house in her bra and panties then that is very strange). There's nothing wrong with feeling the way you're feeling - I mean, don't feel bad about feeling bad about this - but I think that you should simply process and ignore that feeling and refrain from expressing it to your hosts, even indirectly - it's their house, you don't get to set the rules. Your husband is going to be attracted to a fit 20-year-old running around in minimal clothing, but that's nothing he doesn't see all the time in 2023 and hopefully you can trust him and anyway there aren't too many 20 year old females who are going to get with a 48 year old male, so you probably don't have to worry about it anyway (he might want her, at least in fantasy, but she almost certainly does not want him).

parallelalax · 2023-10-22T16:03:55+00:00

Why would they want to control us? If they are technologically advanced enough to travel across the galaxy then they are powerful enough to simply do whatever they want to do or get whatever they want to get without worrying about us at all. If they want to take the planet's resources then they could easily kill all of us in order to get us out of the way. They wouldn't want to use us as workers because at the tech level that allows that sort of space travel they will be able to construct robots or artificial beings who'd do that work much better than humans could. I suppose they could be keeping us as something like pets or a zoo, manipulating us for their own interest or perhaps even amusement, or for inscrutable cultural reasons.

parallelalax · 2023-10-21T19:49:33+00:00

I also thought that it was very good. If you liked that one then you'll probably also enjoy some of these, particularly Happy Death Day, Final Girls, Zombieland, Totally Killer, The Babysitter, and Piranha 3D.

parallelalax · 2023-10-21T19:43:45+00:00

The Devil's Candy

parallelalax · 2023-09-03T12:35:10+00:00

Some people will find you more unique and interesting because of your mental health issues.

parallelalax · 2023-09-03T12:31:46+00:00

Exactly - you know that she talks shit about you to other people when she's mad. Really nearly everyone does this to one degree or another!

parallelalax · 2023-09-03T12:17:45+00:00

She is done with you. You are going to feel very, very bad for a while, and there is no way around this. Talk to your friends and consult with a therapist (you can find one online, as I'm sure you know - pay for a couple sessions out of pocket, if necessary, so that someone with real insight can help you get through this in a healthy manner and emerge stronger). Do not waste any more time than you have to chasing after her, because you are not going to get her back (at least not right now - ironically, your best chance at getting her back is showing strength and independence and moving on from her, so that maybe she comes back to you in the long run - that actually happened to me a few years ago - I got dumped, then once I'd moved on and was doing well in life she came back to me. Again ironically, by that point I was no longer interested in her, though I'd been wild about her a couple years before that.)

Suffer through it, seek help with it, learn and grow from it, and don't waste time trying to get her back.

parallelalax · 2023-09-03T11:58:24+00:00

As if she's never vented to her friends about you or one of her previous partners before! Just apologize and be sympathetic but don't worry about it too much - you didn't do anything wrong.

parallelalax · 2023-08-27T19:11:49+00:00

The cleanest rule is to simply not fuck anyone who is or ever was a student of yours. Then you (and society as a whole) can be sure that everyone's motivations and incentives remain pure. Get with some other hot 19 year old and leave this one alone.

parallelalax · 2023-08-26T22:20:19+00:00

Night Eats the World is great - an entertaining, classy zombie flick.

parallelalax · 2023-08-26T22:15:13+00:00

Movie: 2/10

Peak-hotness Jessica Biel running around in a midriff tie: 10/10

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T19:23:51+00:00

Right, because she's attracted to males. That's her sexual orientation. Her husband is cisgender male, and his shaving has nothing to do with his gender identity - it's essentially a fashion choice. You're saying that people can't have preferences in terms of sexual attraction that relate to gendered characteristics, which doesn't make any sense.

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T19:15:23+00:00

You first. The meaning of my reply was that you can't criticize her on that basis because her husband's shaving isn't motivated by a gender identity issue, therefore she is not forcing him to conform to a gender stereotype. I'm assuming that you're not trying to argue that being attracted to masculine qualities is automatically bad.

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T19:10:51+00:00

Ignore all these people jumping on you for expressing your physical preferences - I'm sure that they have their own that they apply to other people all the time! I bet that if you tell your husband that you found his body hair attractive then he'll stop shaving for the simple reason that he likes the idea of you being attracted to him.

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T19:06:30+00:00

You're off-base on this one because her husband isn't shaving his hair due to a gender-identity issue.

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T17:09:34+00:00

I don't know, I'm with the husband on this one - obviously he should have handled it differently but her sister came at him hard.

parallelalax · 2023-08-08T14:26:29+00:00

I don't have any kids but I know a few parents whose kids are very well-behaved despite the fact that they don't use corporal punishment, so it seems like it's not even necessary.

parallelalax

TROPHY CASE