I’ve always loved broccoli, and a lot of folks hate it, so…
Roast your broccoli, people.
Toss it with a little olive oil, salt it, and bake at 400 or so until it’s browning.
It adds a depth of flavor you wouldn’t expect if you’ve never had it.
Heh, I corrected that.
I met my wife online about fifteen years ago.
We were in the same town and met after maybe two weeks of messaging each other… and we just clicked. (Views on politics, religion, drugs/alcohol, pets, and lifestyle were all compatible, easy to just be around each other, etc.)
I’m 51 now and this is my fourth relationship. It’s never been easy to find someone I match up with. (For context, I’m tall, balding, and quite fat, but I think I’m pretty attractive/do well with what I have. I didn’t always have that confidence in myself. Don’t beat yourself up, it really doesn’t help.)
It’s also worth saying that I was in a terribly dark place when I met my wife, but I put myself out there anyway. Working on yourself is a great priority, without question, but I found someone who accepted me at my lowest, helped me to be better, and I was then able to reward her by being a good husband. Having been through that (and other dark times) has made us stronger together.
So my advice is:
That old canard, ‘Be attractive. Don’t be unattractive’ is completely true. Play up on what makes you attractive, and don’t mess that up by being rude or smelling bad.
Show interest in public. By that I mean be jovial and open. Notice those who respond in kind. If you can, strike up a tiny conversation. Build those skills in little moments. Maybe this will go somewhere, maybe not, but you’re learning to be more open.
Be social, and some of that can include online dating. If you’re doing online dating, try to meet early, as that’s where you’ll be able to find if you click with someone. You just can’t know until you meet, in my opinion. Plus long online-only relationships involve you envisioning the ideal of a partner rather than seeing if you can live with them.
Put yourself out there! You can’t get better about approaching women if you don’t keep trying. Don’t hit on everyone you meet, of course, but I’ve known really ugly guys who always had a cute girlfriend (Also a couple schlubby guys who married absolutely gorgeous women, somehow) and several solid couples where neither are conventionally attractive, but they have love and a great life together.
And that last line should be your goal, a great partner and a great life.
This was back in 2000, had just gone through a divorce. Had gotten a new pad with a friend and started hanging out with his stoner buddies. (Most of them are still close friends to this day.)
I took something like five hits of acid. I’d tried it only once before and it didn’t too much for me, so I upper the dosage.
I still didn’t get visuals, but it was an interesting trip.
A friend of mine was on the couch flipping through cable and settled on a claymation Don Quixote, which was just perfect for a melting reality. Thumbprints in the clay, rough work.
And I did something really goddamned stupid. I took out my new fancy chisels to practice on a block of wood.
Thankfully I didnt cut myself. I was being careful and just trying to gouge out a volcano on the end of a block of pine, twisting my arm to turn the block.
I went through some deep internal stuff about how I treated myself and women, why I’d been alone for so long.
In the weeks to follow I asked out four women I had crushes on and was shot down each time, but the point was I held onto this shit rather than ever expressed any interest. It was really useful.
So I’m coming off the trip and I’m sitting at my computer, and my hand just slides off the keyboard.
Repeatedly.
I’d held my arm in that extreme twisted position so long whilst contemplating my love life, set to claymation Don Quixote, that I almost gave myself fucking nerve damage.
No, it was purely by choice in a well-marked post.
I’m scared about the blowback.
It was inevitable that eventually somebody would ‘fight back’ somehow.
Now we have to deal with how all the idiots act, react and overreact.
It won’t be pretty, but again, it was inevitable.
The day of, when it happened, I watched the video… and then had to literally touch grass, walk it off, get some fresh air.
Wife got home, wanted to see it, had the same reaction.
I just don’t like watching people die, no matter who it is. But now and then I gaze into the void deliberately.
I was at a restaurant with my wife’s family - lots of kids.
This place was in a fairly rural area and there were chickens pecking around outside.
While eating one of the kids says “A chicken just crossed the road!”
No hesitation at all I yell “WHY?!?”
I will occasionally butter one piece, peanut butter the other, and have a truly decadent toasted peanut butter sandwich.
Buffalo
Yeah, anything that has you speaking in game jargon in public should qualify.
One of my friends at a pizza place a few years ago: “I can’t believe I didn’t get to poison anyone last night.”
Me: “Dude, context! We are in public!”
Fax machines!
They were invented long before the computer or modem, with the original patent being issued in 1843.
They seem wildly outdated, but the ability to replicate the signature (iirc) led to faxes being accepted as legal documents.
This speaks more to the underlying usefulness in earlier eras, but it’s still wild to make a phone call that leads to a printed document.
A peacock’s tail is a flourish, something that adds to the whole without detracting.
A cocktail combines spirits with other flavors to make them something else.
I don’t really drink cocktails, but thr antiquated term makes sense in a particular context.
Now looking it up, apparently the origin of the term isn’t actually known and my interpretation isn’t even in the running, but I’m saving this anyway because it’s amusing.
I’ll have to give that a watch. Dinklage is always a joy to watch.
That’s it!
I’d forgotten it was a match 3.
So imagine you have two of the same color side by side with no gaps.
You have the same color on the bottom of your current piece.
You could slam that piece into the matching ones, hoping that they would bounce up and allow all three to match in a row.
It was the one linux game I had that most friends would ask to play when they came over.
An old game that never really took off, Orbz.
I was one of the best players in the world while it lasted.
Simple little game, you’re a ball and you throw yourself at stars. The more you hit in a row without missing, the better your combo and score.
Essentially pong, but you play the ball, and it’s on a landscape rather than somewhere you fall off and die.
I made a few levels for it.
Another was Triptych, which my friends and I called jelly tetris. Imagine tetris but the bits are springy and bounce a bit. It was a blast. Both were commercial games available on Linux at the time, early 2000s.
Yeah, I was never on Compuserve, just aware of it’s history.
1990, through a local dialup university system that had security issues.
Within a few years after that we had home dialup internet.
In 1998, cable modems came to town. My neighborhood was the beta test area, so I had friends in my living room playing Everquest almost daily.
It was an old dial-up multi user system that charged monthly fees. Once the internet became popular, Compuserve connected, but they predate the commercial home internet.
I’m sure this doesn’t count, but my WoW life was utterly ideal, aside from me sucking at being a rogue.
I played in the same dining room as several (4-6) friends and we grouped up constantly.
But I also didn’t care one tiny fuck about the endgame grind. I hit level 60 (the max at the time), shouted “I win,” and sold my account to a friend for forty bucks.
My current life, I’m not really a gamer other than mobile crap and D&D these days. Too old, tired, busy.