Break falls are the only skill I’ve kept from my martial arts training, but it’s literally the most useful one.

Am middle-aged(ish) nerd, can confirm this would work.

Most settings, the key is paying attention to indicators of interest/disinterest. If someone isn’t engaging with you beyond grunts, looks visibly uncomfortable, etc. that’s your cue to gracefully exit.

This is the hard part for a lot of people, properly gauging interest after initiation and knowing when to move on. If it’s not intuitive, unfortunately there’s not much else you can do to improve this other than practice.

Sometimes you can find more casual philosophy-focused discussion/reading groups too - I know a few have a presence on Meetup in my area. They meet at a pub or something and discuss a particular topic for the evening.

“@!#?@!, motherfucker!”

It’s a term that’s taken on some additional baggage/meaning. Originally it simply meant someone who was involuntarily celibate - wants to have sexual relationships, but doesn’t. Now it usually refers to someone adhering to a kind of peculiar set of ideologies around that (see: social value theories taken to some often ridiculous extremes; good ol’ fashioned misogyny/perhaps misanthropy; etc.).

There’s a kneejerk reaction to incels in the latter sense because so much that comes out of that is pretty awful. That and it’s often folks who engage with the latter stuff who are more inclined to identify with the term incel - most others who just fit the former definition just say they’re single.

IMO the latter usage is just more proof that we are failing and continuing to fail men, badly, in terms of community and mental health supports.

I am equally, if not more embarrassed to say this is an excellent idea and I need to steal it.

Eh, the hype around it maybe, but it can be a useful/unique experience for some - at least if you’re not the type where it’d be acutely painful, in which case do whatever gets you through the flight/whatever.

Think about modern life - how often do you find yourself in a position where there are no acute demands, no expectations for how you need to spend your time, and you can just sit with your thoughts for a few hours? Unless you consciously carve out some time for that, IMO it’s pretty rare. Multihour travel as a flight/train/bus passenger affords that time with no special effort.

I like at least attempting it for a chunk of the trip, if not the whole time - imagination starts running wild in cool ways, which otherwise doesn’t happen as often as I’d like it to. Though in fairness, if it’s a plane the cabin noise usually puts me to sleep during the attempt.

I’ll put it this way - if you’re the kind of person that finds the idea of isolation tanks appealing, depending on why you may enjoy raw-dogging flights or other passenger travel. 100% not for everyone though, and that’s fine - different strokes and all that.

My main counterpoint is for those of us who’ve acquired the taste, the rituals around beer (out at a nice place, away from your home/office, listening to decent tunes and drinking something cold, foamy, and a little bitter) are such that you can get that loose and relaxed feeling without the alcohol.

I’m not the biggest fan of getting drunk anymore, so I find myself grabbing a non-alc beer pretty frequently these days. Sometimes just that, other times once I’ve already had two normal beers but want another drink.

I could grab a soda, but I don’t like how sweet it is most of the time.

True, but you can meet in the middle re: this kind of thing with the ring. Having established that it’s going to happen at some point, take a trip to a jewelers ‘for fun’. Pay attention to what she goes ‘oooh’ over - style, stone, cut, etc. Write this information down to search separately.

It’s a bit of a stereotype I suppose, but trust that your future wife knows what she’s doing on that visit (particularly if y’all don’t browse jewelry together frequently - it’s kind of an anvil of a hint). This way there’s still an element of surprise, but you’re not just picking something random in hopes it pleases.

Thing is, it’s not that uncommon to do this, and it’s not like the cashier is going to report you as suspicious to the relevant tax authority. Sometimes people don’t have the full value for groceries in their bank account, or are right at the tip of their credit limit - but do have cash on hand to cover the rest.

The point is to have a paper trail/transaction history of lesser value for the tax man. Two transactions in one visit is just as valid as two different visits using different payment methods.

Comes down to whether you feel awkward doing the first one I guess (cashiers generally won’t think twice about it, aside from maybe mild annoyance). It is a classic “Things aren’t going great for me rn” move - but who cares, you know the truth.

(Ignore all of this and pay your taxes, people)

Got dang*

It’s definitely not for everyone, but I’ve met a small number of disabled people who do exactly this, for similar reasons.

Wouldn’t offer it as a suggestion though, kinda feel like people have to come to that decision on their own.

As someone who rescued Micah by immediately shooting the Sherriff of Strawberry and his buddies in the face, much to my sibling’s utter shock when they were letting me try RDR2 the first time, I’d say the reverse is also true.

YYYY/MM/DD hhmm, 24 hour clock gang unite!

(We also support our YYYY.MM.DD and YYYYMMDD compatriots)

This is a Once in a Lifetime romance.

Do it! Heck, take a friend and some garbage bags and make it nicer for everyone (if you are up to it).

I feel a lot of us would benefit from more time in the bush.

Everyone else here has good tips to get started, so I’ll just say - do it! Even if you suck it’s fun as hell.

It’s been 16 hours since you’ve posted this. I can only hope you’re near the bottom of a looooong staircase at this point.

(Seriously, don’t sleep on this one - a lot of people get turned off by the experimental structure stuff but it’s 100% worth reading at least once)

Remember: happiness has to be fought for.

I watched a few good playthroughs rather than playing myself, but do yourself a favour and go into it as blind as possible.