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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: October 1st, 2024

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  • but still struggle to socialize. I often find it hard to keep conversations going, and honestly, I sometimes feel bored even when I’m talking to people.

    I suspect there’s something there. It may be nothing, or it may be just a lack of maturity (nothing wrong with that, you’re still young), or it may be a defense mechanism, or it may be a lack of empathy of some kind. There’s a bit of a skill to really finding interest in other people. If you talk with someone long enough, you can usually find something interesting about them. But it can be a skill to build rapport and to have genuine empathy – if you force it, you can sound “fake” or like you’re interviewing them. I’ve had some friends who were great at this, they could hold a conversation with basically anyone, I’m not a natural but I just watched them often enough that I try to do what they did. You may want to look around for some kind of social skills training or counseling if that’s available.

    I’ve also faced rejection from women about 4-5 times in a row, which I know is mostly my fault because I come off as desperate or just don’t know what I’m doing.

    There is so much benefit to having a platonic girfriend. Someone socially competent who you have zero interest in hooking up with but you’re good friends with. Then you can say: I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, I went up to (whoever) and said (whatever) and I think I just came off as desperate! And then your platonic girlfriend will tell you what you’re doing wrong.


  • Well there are two issues there.

    • First, where’s the right place to organize? This community has decided to not focus on politics, and instead direct people to [email protected] and [email protected] which is fair enough.
    • Second, what can we do that is more than just a big protest/rally? There are plenty of organizations that do important work but a lot of progress isn’t big and flashy enough to make the news. The 50501 demonstrations came about in part because people felt not enough was being done and wanted something bigger and flashier, and several organizations went to the 50501 demonstrations to offer “next steps.” But to answer the question “what can we do?”: find an organization that does more than just demonstrate, i.e. maybe they pressure congressional reps., maybe they focus on state- or city-level policy, maybe they support legal challenges, maybe they help protect vulnerable communities, etc.




  • I have this kid relative. Whenever they visited, I’d take out a portable whiteboard and draw mazes for them. Then I’d have them draw mazes for me. Ofc we’d play lots of tic tac toe. Sometimes I’d write word puzzles, or math puzzles. (i.e. simple addition problems) Then I’d have them write some math problems for me. ofc they’d write huge numbers for me to add and I’d pretend I was confused and bewildered and I’d count on my fingers to solve them. It was just to have fun. It didn’t involve a computer but it got them thinking, and now that they’re older they like math. It’s important that you emphasize the fun parts.

    I’d open up a computer with them and we’d look at stuff together. I’d say: “that’s like the part that thinks. that’s like the part that remembers. that’s like the part that remembers a LONG TIME” etc. Then we’d look at the patterns on the circuit boards, etc. For Science Fair they did a project called “Will it Boot?” We took a computer, they opened it up, and removed the hard drive. Then we asked “will it boot?” and turned it on. Then we replaced the hard drive and removed the RAM and asked “will it boot?” and turned it on again. Etc. I took pictures of them opening the case, we made a table of what the PC could boot without, printed a diagram that I downloaded of the part names, put it all on a posterboard and that was the Science Fair project.

    This is your kid, right? Severely limit “tablet time” but don’t worry about it being in their life – back in the day we had TV which was not much better, and it’s important that the kid have some knowledge of mass media to talk about with their future classmates. But tell them they can take it apart and put it together again whenever they want. And if it accidentally breaks when they’re doing that, then sincerely congratulate them (“your first unsuccessful experiment!”) and immediately head out to buy them a new one. Just get an inexpensive box that you can put Linux on. Easily. Like, let them put the USB stick in and boot it, and tell them what to press. (ahead of time, try to make sure it’ll work!) (tell them “it’s just a toy now, but we’ll turn it into a REAL computer!”) Then point Firefox to youtube and look up a video or something. Make sure the PC is somewhere public where you can see it too. Hang out and watch what they’re doing, watch what they’re watching. Talk back to the show. Make jokes about the show and tell the show when you don’t like it. Come up with fanfic ideas. Me and my fam came up with this awesome alternate-reality Pokemon world and role-played it, resolving battles with “rock paper scissors” oops gotta go.