I don’t know how other men are but generally when I see someone (of any genre) there’s like an automatic evaluation - not in words or conscious - that flags like “are they a threat? Are they hot?” and a bunch of other stuff. It’s just part of the “what am I looking at?” reflex in the brain.

But I don’t, like, linger on it. Don’t play out in my head what sex would be like, or how to defend myself if they pulled a knife, or whatever.

To make a computer metaphor, some attributes are eagerly loaded and others lazily. I think attractiveness is eagerly loaded.

Also I’m comfortable enough not to feel threatened by finding people attractive.

I had a friend that, when talking about this, seemed like their brain didn’t eagerly load the same things. They didn’t “know” if someone was hot until they thought about it, and were confused how that information was just there for me.

This is a good description

It’s a disgrace what capitalism has done to dating apps.

Used to be you could put in a lot of free text, and search for whatever you wanted. Get the unadulerated list sorted by match percent.

Now it’s all opaque algorithm bullshit. Fuck 'em. These executives have blood and misery on their hands.

NYC, but I can’t promise I’m representative of how people talk, heh.

I went on a brief tangent trying to find what people call it by region but didn’t find a cool map of anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grocery_store does say that it’s sometimes used as I did, though.

This supermarket used to have self checkout, but they got rid of it for some reason.

They do have a line reserved for Uber eats, door dash, etc. Not a fan of that.

BJ’s does that and it’s very fast. They have a guy at the exit do a spot check, but there’s basically no line.

BJ’s does have an annual subscription though, which sucks.

I think I’ve read that it is about perception, which is up there with children thinking the tall, narrow, glass has more water after pouring the short wide glass into it.

The supermarket is a 5 minute walk from my apartment, and for the past few years didn’t have big lines. I don’t know if they changed staffing, or it got more popular, or what.

There are some smaller grocers that don’t typically have long lines nearby, but I don’t think they have the big tubs of peanut butter I lust after, or a few other things I sometimes get. I should probably check out the smaller grocers anyway

I really dislike that most groceries don’t have one big line that feeds into registers. It’s just stupid to allow me to get stuck behind someone who’s arguing about a coupon for 5 minutes while people who came after me flow through the other registers.

The grocery by me also never seems to have enough checkout staff to keep the lines short. There’s a lot of people with full carts, and no express line. I end up waiting for 10 minutes to buy some bread and bananas .

The courier with 10 int, charisma, luck could probably do a pretty good job.

I owe some people some apologies. Sorry Dan. I was wrong. I was acting far too immature. That time of my life really brought out the worst of me. It’s for the best we lost touch but I’m sorry for how I was.

Can we play an RPG that’s not DND specifically? Fate is cool and light weight.

I already felt pretty good about not eating meat*. I think this would have have been a big motivator if I wasn’t already on board

*Ok, I’m kind of a half assed vegetarian. I generally don’t buy meat but if I’m at like a dinner someone else planned I might have some they cooked. It’s easier than going all the way to 100%, and has reduced my meat consumption by like 95%.

I got a friend to play Path of Exile with me once. They hadn’t really played a lot of video games before. When they leveled up and it did all the sparkly lights they were like “oooh wow!!”

I was like oh, I guess I’m numb to that thrill since I’ve seen it a million times. But the sparkle reward was fresh for them and got their attention.

I remember playing some shitty free MMOs in my youth. Kill 12 foobars, kill 10 bazbots. Being legitimately excited when they overlapped so I could do more than one at the same time. Some part of the brain just gets excited seeing numbers go up and progress bars fill.

I feel like the sentence is trying to communicate

• I have never been to Berlin
• many people have been to Berlin
• i am in the minority, having not been to Berlin.

This relies on some illusionary filling in the gaps.

I don’t think I have any subscriptions, unless you count like phone/Internet. There’s plenty of entertainment for free or cheap. check out your local library.

We’re never going to get most people to care or be willing to be a little uncomfortable, but can you imagine the impact if everyone just canceled their subscriptions all at once? Disney executives would be jumping out windows. Youtube’s office would be blood soaked.

I’m mostly the same.

I often think about one time a friend invited me to play “DND”. I get there and it’s revealed it’s not DND, but a different RPG. I was like “ok hold on…” and spent like 20 minutes skimming the book while we all ate pizza and settled down.

By the time we started I knew the rules as well as everyone else, which was admittedly a low bar.

The authors are (typically) trying to write the rules in a way for you to understand. It’s not a puzzle.

Of course, being familiar with the genre helps immensely.

One friend sort of explained it to me. It’s anxiety. They were afraid they weren’t learning fast enough, or were playing badly, or other people were judging them. Fear shuts down the brain. You’re explaining to them, “You can take three actions on your turn” but they’re not hearing you - they only hear anxiety-fear-screams

Every time this happens, it’s worse the next time. It’s one more example of “humiliation” on the stack. Even if no one else thought there was anything amiss.

I don’t think natural disasters are a great metaphor. I mean, even as you say you can do some stuff to mitigate flooding.

Often, in the scenario I was describing, it feels like they just accept the flood as inevitable and don’t want to do anything. Build no walls. Dig no drainage. No evacuation. Someone wants to build a dam, and they’re just like “walls?? Like a prison??”