Coming from ‘Merca, I wholeheartedly support this measure. If one lesson was learned from WWII, it’s that as soon as you’ve identified a bully, you have to accept that diplomacy is no longer an option. Bullies don’t understand diplomacy, and don’t respect it. All they know, or respond to, is what they perceive as strength and/or power. At a more basic level, friendship means nothing to them because it’s a foreign concept.

Dating is essentially butt-sniffing. The longer you do it, the more familiar it all is. And it is a commitment - for many they’re committing to focus their interest on one person for a bit to see if they want to make it a longer commitment.

That said, I got a great piece of advice after getting out of a long relationship. A friend told me romantic relationships only end in one of two ways: you break up or someone dies. You only have control over one of those scenarios, so how can it be a Bad Thing all the time?

Y’all, every relationship is different, sometimes wildly different. It’s true that every relationship takes some work. How much is dependent on the relationship itself.

Slowest pitch in history.

Same.

He went to Penn, too, right?

Yes.

This is the mentality to have through November, 2026.

It’s not a bad problem to have, TBH. The thing that stood out to me is what you consider “not necessary.” Other than this, you seem to have figured out a sensible budget, and you’re prioritizing your future self. I have the same thoughts whenever I make a large purchase, and sometimes they win out. Sometimes they don’t. The thing is do you feel like your frugality is keeping you from something, or negatively impacting your life?

I thought the same thing! I think this is the first picture of the whole stupid title, and I’ve been laughing about it since I first assumed they left the original “The” in place.

Around the same time they did this, I also saw the picture of the sign they put outside the Oval Office. Like it’s a fucking restaurant! So now these two stupid things that stupid man did are forever intertwined in my head.

He should hide ASAP, before he winds up “not deported” in El Salvador or somewhere in Africa.

Same here. I don’t mind microblogging, but I find it hard to find good content to follow on Mastodon. Also not a fan of my feed being filled with replies. Not having the thread right there for context is distracting and annoying.

No idea what sharkey is. Don’t really care to find out.

Same as everyone else, I came over with the API refugees. I still lurk on Reddit using Brave (that and YT are the only things I use Brave for) because some communities there are still good fountains of information. I don’t post or vote on anything there, though.

Still have Apollo on my phone though.

“let him without sin throw the first rock”

It’s shocking how many “religious” people have forgotten this.

Came here for this. Yeah, you’re the enemy because you invaded another country, and have been trying to gaslight the rest of the world about it ever since. In fairness, though, the gaslighting has worked on one particular idiot.

Given the story about OP’s exam, I read the “F-“ & “B-“ as grades and thought:

• “F-“ as a verb. I like it.
• “B-“ as a noun? Given the “F-“, it fits.
• ”B-“ for OP’s ex is… generous.

Right, but what did you do?

We’re too stupid a country to be fascist. We’re a popularity contest made up almost entirely of mean girls.

Non-voter: “but 1 didn’t vOtE!”

Everyone else: “Yeah you did. You’re just too stupid to understand what you voted for. Or make any effort to.”

NGL, it’s scary! I still haven’t put anything of consequence on the VPS. Right now, I have everything on 1 system going through swag. I’ve long been a proponent of not fixing what isn’t broken, so I might look for a way to scale my current setup to more than the one system.

I host a couple of small services for more than just me, but I have no plans to provide any cloud services to anyone else but my wife (if she wants).

Thanks for the story, though. Sorry you went through that. I’ve been lucky so far. I’m hoping things stay that way, but obviously trying to plan for when they don’t!