This is not remotely a prank.
Not a prank. But you do have young-person cooties now.
Is it possible you don't recognize flirting very well? Because I know I never could.
3: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I'm actually a pretty big flirt myself.
I totally get/share the impulse to assume flirting is an elaborate prank but, heuristic: flirting is a lot more common than elaborate pranks based on fake flirting.
Why does it seem not real, or like a prank? What's the context we're missing?
^ I only went vice presidential for his privacy, on the off-off-off chance that this could somehow get back to any of our mutual acquaintances. But I should probably ask you to change that, heebie.
Doesn't seem remotely like a prank. There may have been some liquid courage involved in sending you that text, but there's no indication from that exchange that it's insincere.
6: For one thing, it's so totally out of the blue. It's been probably a year since we've worked together or had any other contact.
For another, I just don't get what the attraction would be. I'm not being self-critical. There have been other times/people that made at least some sense to me. I can't think of anything we have in common other than being part of the labor movement.
10: A year gap is sort of strange. Maybe he recently got out of a relationship or recently returned to the dating scene, and is just sort of tossing things out to see what sticks.
I mean this is making me want to send random crush texts, which would be more than a year out, so.
Let's be honest, people: our putative private lives are all fiction. If other human beings were mad enough to find us attractive we wouldn't be on the internet.
Let's be honest, people: our putative private lives are all fiction. If other human beings were mad enough to find us attractive we wouldn't be on the internet.
There may have been some liquid courage involved
Maybe it's that. "I've always had feelings for you" doesn't sound like something he'd say, but who can tell anything from texts. I need inflection and non-verbal clues, youngster!
On the internet, nobody knows you're putative.
this is making me want to send random crush texts
Do it!
It's obviously not a prank, but I like imagining that it was. Who sits around and thinks "Oh man I am so ready for my night of SICK BURN pranking. Tonight I'm going to text some random co-worker and say "Can we go on a date? I've always had feelings for you." OH MAN THAT WILL BE FUCKING FUNNY.
The 15-20 year age gap might explain why you didn't notice any attempted flirting when the two of you worked together.
Anyway, whatever the story is, you handled it in a way that is entirely unembarrassing for you. Even if it were a prank, which I can't imagine it was, everything you said was fine.
Let's be honest, people: our putative private lives are all fiction. If other human beings were mad enough to find us attractive we wouldn't be on the internet.
That's certainly what I'm doing here.
"Hi, I have a confession to make. I've always thought tht we had some chemistry, and if you're single and feel the same way, would you like to go out sometime? OH HA HA HA JUST KIDDING GOT YOU SUCKA!!!!!"
19: I can imagine plenty of people who imagine exactly that, except not with their own phone.
I'm kind of talking myself into doing this. Let's go max asshole!
Yeah, it sounds very middle-school, but like a very plausible middle-school prank. "Susie, I like you. do U like me? Check one: _ Yes __ No". Followed by gloating "Look, Susie believed someone liked her." It sounds like an insane prank for an adult, but pranks generally sound insane for adults.
The aggressive text I really want to send is to this guy who continues to act in ways that leave me unsure whether he is trying to encourage my professional development or make me his mistress. "Hi. How can I get money from you? Any answer is fine."
26 cont. what I really think of course is that it's all a prank but applying my heuristic etc.
"Susie, I like you. do U like me? Check one: _ Yes __ No". Followed by gloating "Look, Susie believed someone liked her."
I think that's what was lurking in the back of my mind. I guess we really never do get over middle school.
I still remember with gratitude being saved from something similar in 5th grade. I had written on a notebook "Burr + P.R." (Peter something, not Puerto Rico). Someone saw it and started teasing me and I did the whole, "It's not anyone in our class. It was this guy I met at ... camp, yeah, camp." Obviously, no one believed it but a friend jumped in and said he was her cousin who I happened to meet at camp. Probably no one believed that either, but they stopped teasing me. She was really just a friend of a friend and was like 3 tiers up the popularity pyramid from me so it seemed especially heroic.
19, 22, 25 et al.
Those were my thoughts too. If it were a prank, it would only make sense if he's an immature asshole bordering on sociopathic. Since nothing you mention about him describes him that way, there's no reason to assume it would be.
Maybe he got out of a relationship, maybe he was into a bottle of whiskey and thinking about The One That Got Away and decided he had nothing to lose by following up. Or maybe he mass texted all female contacts in the hope someone wanted to date him.
I do know that sexual mores for Millennial men differ a lot from Gen X men (there was a study on this some years ago I'm too lazy to look up), and IIRC Millennial men were far more likely to be open to seriously dating older women and women who are smarter or more successful than them. So, you might think it's weird given the age gap, but he might just be fantasizing about you as that hot older chick.
28
I get that. I still have that same fear, even though I also know it's completely irrational now that I am not attracted to 11 year olds.
(Mine is always, you walk into a bar, there's a cute guy with some friends. You smile and make eye contact, and he leaps off his stool in disgust, with all his friends laughing at you and laughing at him for being mistaken as in the same league as you. Then everyone in the bar gets into it, alternating between laughing at you for thinking someone would like you, and shuddering in with revulsion at the thought of being with you. I know rationally how wrong and twisted this is, but it's hard to get that through to the lizard part of the brain.)
Since we've established it wasn't a prank, I think the important issue to discuss is what Burr is doing to toy with the emotions of innocent men she has no intention of dating.
History tells us she's a notorious libertine.
Who says she has no intention of dating him? How would the current partner feel about a long distance boy toy on the side?
30: Yep, dating is never going to happen.
34: Maybe I should send him your way. We've established that he likes brainy older women.
The aggressive text I really want to send is to this guy who continues to act in ways that leave me unsure whether he is trying to encourage my professional development or make me his mistress.
¿Por qué no los dos?
That seems really awkward and embarrassing for everybody involved. The obvious solution is for Burr to answer 31 and LB to copy whatever that is.
Newt says he's trying to encourage your professional development or make you his mistress? GROSS.
you walk into a bar, there's a cute guy with some friends. You smile and make eye contact, and he leaps off his stool in disgust, with all his friends laughing at you and laughing at him for being mistaken as in the same league as you. Then everyone in the bar gets into it, alternating between laughing at you for thinking someone would like you, and shuddering in with revulsion at the thought of being with you.
It would be elaborate and involved and take a lot of work to pull off, but man if you could arrange it that would that be a great, evil way to take revenge on an enemy, especially a former ex. Somebody set this one up for a worthy victim. It's the laughing/shuttering combo that takes it to the next level.
31/39: I'm about to head off to therapy, so maybe I'll find out.
I'm happy to be a cast member in the bar but I'm too lazy to organize it.
44 is yet another way in which you resemble the villain in an 80s movie. I'm now assuming slicked-back hair.
Also too embarrassed by using "former ex."
IMX it's possible to miss the signs of someone being very interested. Fifty years later she told me directly. In some other universe I was possibly more perceptive.
38 they are inconsistent goals here believe me. His wife has a big job and could make my professional life very very very very very difficult. If he cares about my job, he is not trying to sleep with me, and to the extent he is fucking me over by creating the impression of flirtation in fucking FACEBOOK COMMENTS that people can SEE I am especially furious.
You could take him down without offending the powerwife by staging a 30.3.
51 I do have a friend who owns a bar I could probably use, and then we could get all the staff in on it too.
Meanwhile I realized I can't think of former or present crushes to text, in every case either (1) I have already humiliated myself before them (2) or it would actually be a sanctionable breach of professional ethics.
Maybe his wife isn't a Facebook friend of his?
53: Drinking enough to not remember (1) or care about (2) is sort of implied.
Also too embarrassed by using "former ex."
As you should be. She gives you a second chance after a break up, and you repay her by planning a mean spirited prank in a bar.
49 I hear you. Though it's been more like 30.
55 a gift of sobriety is I now know I can and will aggressively abase myself even while of seeming sound mind.
49, 57:
I'm not in touch with anyone from that long ago, but I have a hunch it wouldn't be true of me; I think I always perceived when there was interest but lacked the skills or confidence to make anything of it. Or just embarrassed and confused by it.
44
You could probably make a lot of money if you had a revenge company in Hollywood.
26
Do you think he could be doing it for the ego boost? Like, he doesn't actually want to sleep with you, but he wants to know that you would be willing to sleep with him, so he's flirting with you until he gets a clear confirmation.
IMX it's possible to miss the signs of someone being very interested. Fifty years later she told me directly. In some other universe I was possibly more perceptive.
There are two people I can think of now, many years later, who might have been interested. Basically they were not people I had mentally put in the universe of potential mates because we didn't have enough in common. We create these fantasy worlds by having crushes on other people, and if it isn't someone we have a crush on ourselves, we don't notice whether they're interested or not.
60. 2 is extraordinarily possible, weighing against that conclusion is fact that he is not a known flirt, and that's known flirt behavior.
Pretty pissed there are not more surprise admirers creeping out of the woodwork in my life per 49, 57; I will just chalk that up to being extraordinarily perceptive such that I have never missed a signal of interest and ipso facto cannot be surprised by admiration.
Well, you're all correct, of course. This just in:
HAMILTON: Yeah, I figured it would be a long shot.. I just assumed you wouldn't feel the same way as I did/do. Plus, I didn't want to cause any problems at the time. I'd like to fly down and see you sometime, if you're open to the idea of it?
63: The kid's giving it the old college try, isn't he?
I'm probably finding this more endearing because I'm picturing him as Miranda as Hamilton.
64 Aegi was talking about how when him and his ex split all these marriage-lurkers confessed their attractions like it was just a normal part of divorce that obviously I would have experienced. So now I hate him.
67: To make it less endearing, think of George Hamilton.
69: He was brilliant in Love At First Bite.
Now I am trying to figure out the name of the one person I can think of who fits in neither of the categories in 53. He was at Duke in 2003; the Duke yearbook is unhelpful in that it does not list who had what allergies and I remember he was allergic to orris root.
Brilliant literary instantiation of mixed signals and embarrassment in Juilo Cortazar's hopscotch, the Berthe Tapat chapter 23. The book is intermittently fantastic after kind of a meandering start.
71
At Duke as an undergrad? We have a family friend who went to Duke and is now a DC Lawyer. He's probably around 30 now.
I have no idea if he's allergic to orris root.
I thought his name was Andrew, but may have been something else with an A, or anything, really. He looked like Alain Delon, his coat was longer/trenchier than I would have forgiven otherwise. Aside from orris root allergy, he had celiac. I think his parents might have been diplomats? Idk, there was something with Switzerland. He was friends with a guy at Brown who was bald but had red stubble, and they went to New York together at least once.
Definitely not the same guy. Not named Andrew, connection to Belgium not Switzerland, and parents are not diplomats. AFAIK doesn't have celiac and doubt he wears a trench coat either.
I haven't seen him in 20 years, but he's probably pretty cute, if you're looking for a young DC lawyer to hit on.
I mean, it could have been Belgium but I think he'd be closer to 35. There's no reason I couldn't write your friend and say I had a crush on him 2003. Whatever, I'll write everyone's friends and say I had a crush on them in 2003, just send their names over. It's not a prank because it might be true, idk, I have no idea what I was up to that year.
I think if I wrote to the son of family friends I haven't seen in 20 years saying a stranger I chat with over the internet had a crush on him when he was a freshman in college, you're not the one coming off as creepy.
What about "a stranger I chat with over the internet says you have celiac disease"? Is that chiller?
74: I wasn't a student in any case.
"No, I don't know her actual name but she goes by a that of homicidal Greek mythological figure. I talk to her on the internet, I'm sure it's safe."
This is about as smooth as the time--many years ago, but also many years after the fact--that I put a Craigslist missed connection post up for the guy I liked when I was a freshman in HS and he was a senior then made my friend's sister, who had been in his class, but had also not spoken to him for years, send the post to him being like "hey it's been a while, I thought this post sounded like it was about you, is it?"
This is why I need to have hobbies.
Annnyway when does Hamilton's flight get in?
63 seems pretty thoroughly douchey. I'm so considerate and sensitive that I'm totally ignoring the fact that you said you have a boyfriend and asking if I can come fuck you anyway.
Funny timing, there's a girl I had a huge crush on all through high school. We're friends at the other place and she's nice enough there commenting on pictures and whatnot, although I think she's like that with most people as she's generally friendly. So in a couple weeks she'll be in town when my wife happens to be out of town. Probably a bad idea to ask if she wants to get coffee or something what with us both being married and all. As with other people here, I have no idea if she was ever interested in me.
87 - have you considered sending a dick pic? Never a bad idea.
87: Jeez! Get a GoPro and record everything to show your wife and her detectives. Then have the coffee or something.
Haven't the Men of Unfogged had this conversation about missed opportunities half a dozen times before at least? It is very familiar. I don't think any version of it has happened to me, although on the other side I am extraordinarily poor at signaling attraction. If any of you was a (male) Dutch jazz pianist at the U of C in 2002, you very briefly had a chance with me but you were most wise and lucky not to take it. (Female Dutch pianists probably also would have faced favorable odds had any been known to me.)
Idk, maybe women pay more for obliviousness and can't generally afford it. An ex did tell me he'd been interested for a while before we hooked up, but he is apparently a pathological liar -- but also a quasi nympho, so even odds.
Haven't the Men of Unfogged had this conversation about missed opportunities half a dozen times before at least?
The stereotype is that men are less subtle than women at expressing affection, and so men would be more likely to have situations in which they only realize later on that there was an interest.
That said, as a man of unfogged, I can't think of any notable missed opportunities -- if I missed it at the time I still have no idea.
68: In certain contexts, all expressed interest preadated the actual breakup, though that wasn't totally true in the old neighborhood. I've been lucky and had no interest at the new house unless we count the 70-something white dude whose car yelling was unintelligible over the gangsta rap he was blasting, which I certainly don't. (I did a huge favor for a gorgeous queer Iranian friend of a friend who's in town for a month and whom I'll meet this weekend, but who knows what kind of super impressed she was.)
86: To be fair, he never represented himself as considerate or sensitive.
That's not really a very good defense.
I may not have mentioned the girl in my Hapkido class who, as I lay on the mat with her arms wrapped around my thighs and ass, smiled up at me with her face six inches from my crotch. I later discovered she had been interested in me.
There was a girl in my pchem class junior year who I was friends with who, for a period of time, would put her head on my shoulder each day when she sat down next to me at the start of class. I figured it meant she was tired because it was an 8:30 class. I just sort of froze each time she did it. I already had a girlfriend at the time, which she knew.
Your high school had more than one type of chemistry class?
Stories like this are why I think all relationships should be negotiated in writing, sent by USPS to allow time for contemplation. (A) it would eliminate this kind of ambiguity and misunderstanding, and (B) the human race would die out, leaving everyone better off.
94: To be fair to me, I wasn't seriously defending him.
86: I'm glad you said that. My automatic response in this kind of situation is to protect his feelings/ego instead of WTF, dude? Clearly, I need to get in touch with my inner ogged.
AOOTMOUMA, I've found out that out-of-my-league crushes had brief mistaken ideas about what league I might be in, but thankfully only after opportunities that can only be described as illusory had passed.
101: That is right. I wouldn't have been kidding around about the interaction being endearing if it hadn't been clear that you weren't considering it.
I have been thinking about leagues and anyone who wants to muse about that might be useful because goodness do I not know how to gauge some of this stuff. (I'm being Emersonian for the moment, so it's all theoretical.)
The thing with leagues is that even if you are major-league caliber, you can be sent down for a while if your pitching is off.
I have no idea. It's weird being single. Not that I've done anything effective about it beyond being horrified by OKCupid. But I have literally no idea, in terms
of leagues, who's out there looking for middle-aged professionals without a lot of free time.
105 was me, but I can't go back in time.
clear that you weren't considering it
But had he shared any of Miranda's looks or talent . . . .
But I have literally no idea, in terms of leagues, who's out there looking for middle-aged professionals without a lot of free time.
Various youth soccer leagues.
I couldn't help imagining this as a talk-singing exchange between Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom, Jr.
106: I'm taking a hiatus from dating for a little while, but my experience is that there are a lot of middle-aged professionals with not much free time. I see lots of "my kids are my #1 priority so I don't have much time for dating" and similar disclaimers.
111: It seems like there's a niche (probably filled, since it does seem obvious) for a dating service that matches people based on their child custody schedules. Wouldn't work for people like me, but I remember when a newly divorced dad in the old neighborhood got a little too interested and I was so relieved to hear that his weekends with the kids were the opposite of mine so we'd never have to deal with being at loose ends at the same time. Fitting the stereotype I expected he would, he seems to have settled down with a very nice and competent woman within six months of being blindsided by the divorce and I didn't even have to have any excessively awkward conversations because I was just always busy at the times when anything might have come up!
I'm in a league of my own, IYKWIMAITYD.
Oh me too, peep, just not your league.
114: Well, obviously. It's just me in my league.
115: Sometimes, it's lonely, but at least I know I'll always come in first place.
And the winner is.... This inanimate carbon rod.
Was it him, where you were at, that he was a man, or some combination?
IIRC Schopenhauer once was the only submission to some Kierkegaard essay competition, and he still lost.
It seems like there's a niche (probably filled, since it does seem obvious) for a dating service that matches people based on their child custody schedules.
Given my actual child custody schedule, this is a depressing thought.
112: It seems like you ought to be able to come up with something that looked at a person's Google Calendar and figured out if there was sufficient overlap to sustain a relationship. This should be a project for the Unfogged coding competition that will inevitably occur once we've read all the books.
120: Right, right, I'm at 100% on, so it's not something that would work for me. I've just wondered about it for other people.
If 118 is to me: He's a perfectly nice guy just totally not for me and it was a lot easier to pretend I didn't notice he was interested and thus never have to talk about that openly than deal with what I assume would have been emotional meltdown from someone who was in the throes of pretty significant emotional meltdown already. This is the opposite of LB's mail advice, but it works too.
As I know I've said before, Lee insists on using the shared calendar app for all her scheduling because apparently it's too difficult not to, so I get to see when she has dates. Looks like next weekend she'll be getting a babysitter for the first time, if I read things correctly. Still no luck finding someone who will put up with her for long, unsurprisingly.
120: It's probably different when your children are very likely taller than your date.
Unless your OKCupid profile says "No shorties".
Re leagues and/or "punching above one's weight" as my one Canadian friend charmingly calls it, I was (am?) anxious about them but found it very useful to very deliberately do the exact opposite of what that particular anxiety suggested. Demographics, looks and age were terrible predictors of how people would respond to my particular baggage and face. FWIW this went in both directions--gave chances (and more) to plenty of folks I would have written off previously (including Aegi who literally does not read books) based on hunches/moods, and it made everything a lot more fun and less stressful than it would have been otherwise. I mean I got rejected plenty too, some by people who had a LOT of nerve thinking they were entitled to reject me, but it was fine.
126: This is cheerful sounding, but absolutely incomprehensible in detail. Ramble on a little more, if you would?
124: Well, true. "Child custody" is a different matter when the children in question are as likely to be making dinner as to need to be fed.
I feel like she's saying both Fuck Everyone and fuck everyone.
Or more seriously that (especially once you're past 30 or so) (i) there aren't really "leagues" anymore because for real who knows wtf anyone wants and (ii) you probably don't have a great sense of what you yourself want. So just say fuck it and try a bunch of dates, expecting a few to be horrible but not preemptively writing yourself or someone else off.
Or just say you dated them to get your name in the paper.
129 is excellent advice. Also 126 is very good too. So maybe we should add Fuck my own brain for fucking up my chances.
129-30 are basically right. Details, hm.
At a certain point my only criterion was whether or not I thought "I sort of wonder what it would be like to be on a date with and this person." Not I wonder if it would be fun, or if we would like each other, just "hmmmm." I forgot about "this is the sort of person I SHOULD be looking for," or "I bet this person could handle my shit." If I didn't wonder, I didn't go out.
This led to outcomes including but not limited to (1) an intense romance with a six-and-a-half foot tall literal lumberjack that played out in the woods of Maine, (2) being ditched mid-date in favor of an obviously made up work emergency by someone whose confessed favorite passtime was snorting sleeping pills and listening to Bread, (3) falling for someone extremely appropriate who then decided to get back with his ex at which point I rage-wrote an EXCELLENT sitcom pilot about him (which is not a thing I do), (4) literally having a tunnel-vision/numb-hands panic attack because a date was such a boring close talker that I felt physically trapped (5) watching Cosmos and doing hand stuff. I also realized a lot more people have special, expensive sex furniture than you (or at least I) might think. Like, I made a joke to one date about "haha god can you beleive a week ago I met this guy who had a bed with completely visible dock posts for ropes" and that date was like "uh... I just installed bicycle handles above my bed for the same reason" then me telling the story about BOTH of them to another date with more or less the same effect, etc. etc. until it had happened AT LEAST 5 times because I can't learn.
133: Oh. I guess I was picturing high school because college didn't seem so much for incidental physical contact.
134-last totally cracked me up.
O.K. I give up. How do the bicycle handles work?
Although bicycle handles sounds dedicated, but not expensive. Crafty DIY sex furniture. There's probably an audience for Norm Abram's New Yankee Dungeon.
Full of winking uses of "dovetail joint."
I had a friend once who was amused for years when he had tongue and groove flooring installed on his porch.
136 it actually still happens about once a month, just not on dates anymore. Could it be an actual worldwide prank on me? Maybe. I mean, whatever, sure, I will do any sex thing, but will never not eyeroll at kink-as-lifestyle.
Anyway the bicycle handles--riser bars--go aon the wall about 18 inches above the bed (there's no headboard). (I asked. I didn't see them because he was pissed that I'd made fun of sex furniture so the date ended pretty soon thereafter.)
Dead getting up to ten years now. I did have an alarming moment when I signed up for OK Cupid and hadn't got my age settings straight yet, when I recognized his youngest son being suggested as a match.
142.2 More fool him, he missed an opportunity to ask if you'd like to see them demonstrated.
142.2 makes sense, I guess, but is so very much creepier than getting a headboard.
Don't these people have kids, relatives who visit, cleaning people, repair people, etc.?
Less creepy than getting a reinforced trophy deer head to use the antlers, though.
147 makes me feel sorry for taxidermists. Which has never happened before.
144 I mean, the point is he didn't even think I was worth demonstrating them to--or to continuing to talk to--because I had scoffed at someone else's sex furniture. I just... like, there are so many normal things to tie a person to, stop showing off.
147 would be even better if the deer head was animatronic and could talk
I just... like, there are so many normal things to tie a person to, stop showing off.
This is entirely too entertaining.
But at least now we know what people meant about mounting those talking bass on their walls.
You probably all have sex furniture and I've hurt oyur feelings, I'm sorry. This is obviously my own hang-up.
lol hang up
I'm reading 134.last as saying each subsequent date has increasingly elaborate sex furniture. At this point you must be well beyond the swing George Clooney builds in Burn After Reading. Perhaps the dates have moved beyond sexual carpentry into sexual architecture. (The next step is sexual city planning.)
The Onion had a good piece on this.
The Future of Sexual Transit [there must be a whole mess of Verkehr puns available but I would pick a wrong one if I tried]
I haven't seen that feature advertised on any AirBNB listings.
During one of my rounds of pre-internet dating (via ads in the alternative weekly paper), I made rules for myself that I would 1) go out with anyone who answered my ad and didn't seem psycho and 2) agree to a 2nd date even if the 1st date wasn't great. I ended up breaking both of them, but I think it was the right general approach.
Aegi (which is a terrible boyfriend pseud) are at least theoretically open, which is for a lot of reasons, but a not-insignificant one is he hasn't slutted around since the mid 90s and doesn't quite believe my stories about What is Going On Out There and I want him to (1) know I am right and (2) validate my experience.
(The next step is sexual city planning.)
What, like the ancient city of Petra, but with sex grottoes?
Really, isn't all furniture sex furniture? [Strangelove voice] "It requires only ... ze VILL!... to use it!"
The next step is sexual city planning
I have definitely mentioned before my visit to the Czech town of Tabor, whose street plan was deliberately designed to confuse Catholics. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that one could design a street plan that would inflame the lusts of Lutherans.
I am at the here-is-my-emergency-contact-info-in-case-I-stroke-out-while-we-have-sex stage.
Passcode protected phone issues.
Hand to god I was just talking to a couple of digital artists whose home-made sex furniture included haptic features.
the Czech town of Tabor, whose street plan was deliberately designed to confuse Catholics.
And the city cathedral likewise?
"Nave... transept... chancel... ANOTHER TRANSEPT? The apse is in the basement?"
I haven't seen that feature advertised on any AirBNB listings.
I handled a custody case where an issue was dad's sex dungeon room that he and his wife advertised for rent on Craigslist.
167 the dad and a new wife? Or the couple had a dungeon and then split up and somehow the dungeon became a problem.
ugh "dungeon" that WORD
whose street plan was deliberately designed to confuse Catholics.
You have not. How was that supposed to work?
My boss is gone for like a month so I'm planning to do a lot of oversharing here during that time period.
168:
Dad and new wife. But ex had been in the lifestyle before too. After the split, suddenly it was an issue.
I myself have twice gone the wrong direction down a trail while carrying a compass and a map.
I'm picturing restaurants with big signs offering fish specials on a Thursday.
My secret is remembering how the compass works like the Republican Party after 1968. The white end of the needle points south.
171 ok but if you clearly have a Complicated Sex Room in the house your kids live in you need to do better.
176:
Agreed. Thus, bike handlebars work much better.
You have not. How was that supposed to work?
Possibilities:
"Is this the road to the station"?
"Yes, and no."
"What do you mean?"
"It's the road to the swimming pool."
"And?"
"And we believe that the swimming pool is consubstantial with the railway station. It just has the accidents of a swimming pool."
"What, you mean drowning?"
"No."
Depends on how big your house is. In fly-over country, plenty of people have houses big enough for a whole room to be off limits to the kids and locked.
In reality: it was built by Taborite Hussites, who were at war with the Catholic League, and they built it with a very complicated street plan to make it more difficult to assault. I think it'd be just as confusing to Jews or Shinto Buddhists.
plenty of people have houses big enough for a whole room to be off limits to the kids and locked
Never not creepy!
169: You navigate by faith alone.
177 Are there ever expert witnesses in divorce litigation? I think I am qualified to opine on what ambiguous objects are probably nerdy sex furniture.
Right. You want the door concealed by a bookcase.
Because puzzling noises emerging from a space behind the walls with no visible means of entrance is much less creepy than a locked room.
One can get sex furniture that is designed to be easily disguised as non–sex furniture, or so I've read.
Right, 185 is why there's a need for expert testimony.
184: that happened to my sister in law last year on holiday. it turned out to be a pine marten with a litter of four kittens. Just beautiful. (She did not agree.)
nerdy sex furniture
What kind of furniture does specifically nerdy sex require? Do they make Star Wars themed bedsheets in a king size?
162 to 185. What furniture is not, at least potentially, sex furniture?
Sadly, only in a children's size.
I am staking out the position that any permanent fixtures used exclusively for sex reasons are nerdy as a matter of law.
190: it says "Twin: 45.5" wide x 108.25" long x 45.5" high". That sounds adult-sized.
And "come back to my place and see my Millennium Falcon bed" is a line that will work on men of several generations.
162 to 185. What furniture is not, at least potentially, sex furniture?
Well, here's the thing. What relatively small, relatively weighty object is not, potentially, a paperweight? And yet we say that this artifact is a paperweight, and a rock, or empty beer bottle, or whatever, is not a paperweight, even though it can be turned to paperweighty uses. The intentionality of artifacts is not to be overlooked: while it may be true that no furniture could not be turned by the right creative hands to some sexual use or other, that would not make it "sex furniture".
I don't get why Moby has problems with compasses. It too is a geocentric system.
193: It's trying to get my hair to do that cinnamon bun thing that's the real difficulty.
What furniture is not, at least potentially, sex furniture?
Glass-topped tables, if you have any reasonable threshold of fear.
What relatively small, relatively weighty object is not, potentially, a paperweight?
A block of ice? A guinea pig?
199 displays sense but not imagination.
Both of those work in certain polar regions.
198: For the love of God, do not google Chuck Berry in this context.
196: you decided against the Wookiee suit, then?
A soggy piece of paper won't blow away.
I really, really wished I'd listened to 202.
Don't think about an elephant either.
181: So an untold multitude of kids are now growing up thinking the off-limit sex room means their parents are cannibals or vampires or have a secret evil twin chained up or something.
Have a meth lab, in this pop-culture cycle.
194: "The intentionality of artifacts is not to be overlooked" but functional fixedness can get in the way of lots of fun. Yes, tables are sex furniture.
The intentionality of artifacts is not to be overlooked.
177 Are there ever expert witnesses in divorce litigation? I think I am qualified to opine on what ambiguous objects are probably nerdy sex furniture
Yes. Thankfully though, for the most part, custody cases no longer revolve around one's moral unfitness due to having the sex outside the bedroom with your opposite-sex spouse. It only matters if the kid is exposed to it.
permanent fixtures
But is it not characteristic of furniture, even captured in the word for furniture in several languages, that it is not permanent but mobile?
FINE but you know what I MEAN though.
Certainly "fixtures" does not mean "furniture" when you sell a house.
214 I suppose the sex swing is furniture but would the hooks in the beams it dangles from be considered fixtures?
Listen I had to take property law like everyone else here, I do know what a fixture is. Forgive my imprecision; I was not talking about like, a sex dock, though if you have one, actually I was.
211: Any advice on coparenting therapy? I know I should want the best for her as a parent and for us working together, but my attitude right now is mostly fuck that shit.
And then there's the wardrobe, which spans both worlds. It fulfils the function of a closet yet appears to be furniture. And ever try to move one? Ugh! Folks, it's a fixture.
218 would she actually do it?
218 - ha ha no. Just let her do whatever and figure it will be crazy and you'll fix it.
She is, either just to spite me or because her lawyer told her that she'd better do at least one thing we'd agreed on in mediation before we're back in court. And at a time when I not only need to get babysitting for all three but find a babysitter who can take Mara to harp class! (It's my mom, which should work fine.) I did complain about how it didn't seem appropriate for us since you need a low-conflict (ex) couple where both partners can look honestly at their behavior and be willing to change for the sake of the kids, which totally isn't us. But they just bumped us to the high-conflict version and I still have to go.
I was not talking about like, a sex dock
As in, dry dock or graving dock?
That's quite an image.
I will say OUR couples person suggested Aegi and his ex try that and A and I both cracked up for like a minute straight.
But they just bumped us to the high-conflict version
So you need advice on how to win a knife-fight?
It seemed like a decent idea back in mediation, but now that it's real I want to die instead. I'll comply, though. And if the therapist can see she's delusional and completely out of touch, maybe that will help me somehow. Just kidding; probably nothing will ever help me and I'll just keep picking up her slack until she decides to give up on parenting altogether, which isn't happening as quickly as people predicted probably because I do pick up the slack.
a sex dock
A sex dock is more of an activity than an object.
A good coparenting therapist helps tremendously in 60 percent of situations. (totally made up number) Given her history, I suspect the coparenting therapy mostly just helps to slightly shame her and to give you some skills to navigate around her issues.
But even small improvements help as long as the sessions aren't too brutal.
229: Thanks, that helps. The goal was one joint session, one individual session each, one closing joint session. But instead we have one joint session to let the therapist do some triage and decide where to go from there. By the time we schedule more, we'll have gone back to mediation and court anyway and maybe I won't have to.
My sympathies, Thorn, that sounds really frustrating.
In nerdy bedroom news, however, my husband bought Marvel Universe sheets for the guest room bed.
231:
Bc the master bedroom already had them, right?
So now you'll have Marvel Universe sheets stained with the excretions of non-family-member adults.
They can't make Voltron sheets, because even figuring two pillow cases, there aren't five things.
will's right in guessing I could handle some better strategies to handle the fall-out from the harder parts of what she does with them or instead of being with them. I will reframe my grumpiness accordingly. This is so much like stereotypical foster parenting that it blows my mind, much more than actual foster parenting was.
But instead we have one joint session to let the therapist do some triage and decide where to go from there. By the time we schedule more, we'll have gone back to mediation and court anyway and maybe I won't have to.
Just agree to keep your sex dungeon-themed room locked up.
236: I don't even have a bedroom doooooooooor!
will's right in guessing I could handle some better strategies to handle the fall-out from the harder parts of what she does with them or instead of being with them. I will reframe my grumpiness accordingly. This is so much like stereotypical foster parenting that it blows my mind, much more than actual foster parenting was.
I am sorry. "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?" is so rarely helpful even when completely deserved.
I'm probably not the most sympathetic lawyer. I think my most commonly said thing to clients is "Oh WOW i am so shocked that your completely self-centered asshole ex is acting like a completely self-centered asshole. After ___ years of this exact behavior, you must be so surprised."
Followed closely by "Oh WOW I am so shocked that your ex yelled at you and said 'ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?' and hurt your feelings when you acted like a self-centered asshole."
It's kind of a weird house! There's clearly been a door on the bedroom before. And I'm going to hire someone to put one on soon. But at the moment it just opens directly to the stairs, which is why Nia's little friend from next door was in my room chatting at 5 am last Saturday when she spent the night. There's a door across the stairwell so if I wanted theoretical non-sex-dungeon privacy I could at least close that.
239: I have not said that, though! Well, not to her. I'm saving it up very carefully because at some points it's been useful to be able to say that she still uses abusive and profane language to me, though no longer in front of the kids, but I never respond in kind.
there aren't five things.
Fitted sheet, sheet, duvet cover, 2 pillowcases.
Sheesh.
So, black lion gets the duvet cover, blue lion gets the sheet, yellow gets the fitted sheet, red and green lions get the pillow cases.
No you need one more thing. Voltron needs to be the duvet cover with the underparts the separate lions.
Don't be silly. Voltron is an emergent property of the pillow fort.
And then there's the wardrobe, which spans both worlds
I'm pretty sure admitting to bestiality with a lion who thinks he's Jesus will look bad in court.
On the other hand, if you let your ex find out about and try to use it against you? You're golden.
You can have one be the full Voltron, and the others be the lions, because then you have two Voltrons total. You can't be duplicating Voltrons.
Listen, I don't want to shatter anyone's dreams, but the images on the sheets are mere representations of Voltron. They are not Voltron.
We already knew you were a Protestant.
I'm actually in a fine mood today, but you guys are nonetheless cheering me greatly. 199/200 and 250/251 especially, but all of this, really.
Tonight the girls are staying with my parents do I can pack the last of the stuff and sweep. I took my brother out to dinner to thank him for helping and give my damaged ankle a rest and I just saw the neighbor guy I talked about in whatever comment I don't want to look up on my phone was in the next room and made a point of catching my eye and giving me a thumbs up. Dude, nooooooooo.
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Moby Dick: you or your kid might enjoy this... https://t.co/SGvBk6cWtk
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