I say go on dates of potential romantic interest as they come up, and fill in with casual sex of the least-bad variety as needed. Your ability to be mercenary about it may be different from mine--I am apparently in a mercenary frame of mine at the moment. Never lying, never promising, playing the stupid and tiresome numbers game of contacting anyone remotely attractive that hits over 80% matching on OKC. It keeps me busy with dates and occasional sex. I wish one would turn into a relationship, but in the meantime I'll take what I can get. For me at least the key is to stay true to myself while being open to possibilities. It feels ethical if tiring, but better than being alone all the time. (Caveat: my childcare duties are a bit less than 50%, which gives me more time and energy than you. YMMV.)
You're super great, Anonymous Commenter! And if anyone doesn't like your lyric poetry bite their swinelike faces off. Super great!
Ben, I send stuff to Heebie because for some reason lost in the mists of time I learned an email address that she actually checks, and I don't know one of those for any other FPPs. If they want to get more ATMs etc, they can disseminate this information and I'm sure the commentariat will involve them in strict rotation if that's what they want.
1. What is the least bad variety of casual sex? Cheating on Prince Harry with Meghan Markle in Kensington Palace?
2. Endorsed 100%
I don't really have any need to be anonymous, but I appreciate neb's making it harder to connect by googling. 2 is one of my favorite memes, though I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED THE OPPOSITE OF THIS is definitely winning right now and has been for a while. But thanks! It's not worries about my own greatness as much as worries about whether anyone else is great enough to warrant even the $10/hour babysitter.
And Chopper, thanks. That's very helpful to hear and a slightly more codified and proactive approach than mine. I don't know that I define mercenary the way you do, but I think I do all right being honest with people about who I am and what to expect.
More considered thoughts should come but first I must learn more about "that haircut."
Hmm, Flip, It's sort of a know-it-when-I-see-it thing. There's a lot of overlap between lesbian haircuts and mom haircuts (spikes, fronds, asymmetry) and yet this one just didn't strike me as being in that gray zone at all, very dramatic and hip. She seemed to be coming into her own in a lot of ways, and seems to have done so. (She's back on okcupid as of last night; I'm not interested.)
[Taking notes.] Got it. And those are distinguishable from MILF haircuts, right?
I don't know that I'm qualified to speak to MILF hair, though other commenters certainly are. My stereotype would be long, shiny, shareable hair but I guess the straight male generation that imprinted on Tawny Kitaen isn't the one targeted.
Mother I'd Like To Feather (the hair of).
Oh, I have good advice. If your life is crazy, don't volunteer for shit. The marginal hour becomes increasingly precious. I have seen people close to me volunteer themselves into a state of virtual breakdown and become unable to quit anything out of a sense of responsibility and guilt.
I'm unlikely to actually follow the dating advice, but 12 I've definitely taken to heart. None of the volunteering I've done in recent years has been personally rewarding enough to do more, though I enjoy this support group and it's something that's a small time commitment and over when it's over. Thanks!
whether anyone else is great enough to warrant even the $10/hour babysitter.
Easy to solve. Make splitting the babysitting costs an explicit condition for dating you (even a first date). This lessens the financial risk on your end, and also pre-selects for people who understand that if you're involved in a relationship with someone who has children, childcare burdens will need to be shared.
It might also just pre-select for people willing to pay for companionship.
15: Ew, no. I've never paid less than half on any of my dates for the actual date. Childcare is definitely all on me. I don't want to share any of the child-related burden except in a very serious relationship. (The girls did meet Punchy as my friend after we'd dated several months, but they have no idea she was ever my girlfriend.)
"Lovely date we're having here. It would be a shame if I had to go home before we come up for coffee because I don't have any more money to pay the babysitter."
That wasn't intended to be serious advice.
Have you considered dating men? I know a guy who lives in your town and is single.
"whether anyone else is great enough to warrant even the $10/hour babysitter."
Fight for $15!
I'm not sure if he would be your type. (I mean apart from not being your type because male.)
With you, urple, I never know! And it's not that I can't afford a babysitter, just that I could buy myself a lot of things more fun than a date for $20-$40 on that and whatever I spend on food and drinks.
21: The $15 babysitter is so bad she's never coming back. I am still finding places they smeared cocoa when she let them make unlimited amounts of chocolate sludge and we don't even live in that house anymore. My local brother will occasionally babysit for free, which let me see The Handmaiden but also meant I was seeing it while getting texts like "Nia says she usually takes a shower before bed and uses a hairdryer that was buried in a box by the kitchen table, is that legit?" sent after he was supposed to have confiscated their phones and put them to bed. On the other hand, at least he didn't let a stray cat into the house when he found it while he was outside smoking and thought he'd let it out of the house but texted me first.
I'm not entirely opposed to men, urple, but I'm definitely not going to date men online. I've looked and it makes my stomach drop. (One of the erroneous tinder matches was from that, while trying to get back out and change my settings I must have swiped right.)
21: After the bad $15 babysitter I paid the good babysitter $15 and her mom messaged me to say that it was a ridiculous amount of money and I shouldn't be spending that much. Or that if I insisted on that rate, SHE should be the one babysitting. (She was Mara's teacher for two years and is as wonderful as her daughter.) We went back to $10.
There's a lot of overlap between lesbian haircuts and mom haircuts
I am suddenly enlightened. There's a Gen X mom I know (doesn't seem to be a Millennial mom thing?) who has hair that's similar to, but less aggressively asymmetric than, Cameron Esposito's side-cut. I did not understand the signaling.
I don't have any practical advice beyond 12. Your time is valuable. You're surely in, at absolute minimum, the top five percent of people in terms of do-gooding. It's okay to increase your time for self-care, however you need it. And if that gives you more time to find the perfect lyric poetry lover, all the better.
I have to say, 23 does undercut 17 somewhat. It sounds like the right risk allocation might be to agree up front that anyone you agree to date will cover 100% of your childcare costs upfront, BUT that you will reimburse them for 100% (or maybe 103%?) of those costs if and only if you ultimately deem the date to be more fun than whatever else you could have done with that money. That arrangement seems win-win for everybody.
I don't have advice but I just want to lobby those who are dating to regale us with their tales of sordid debauchery and abject humiliation.
I expect to be back on the dating scene early next year (taking a break from it to wallow in self examination a bit) and I'll be sure to post anything exciting that happens.
The friends of the library bag sale is $1.50 for as many books as you can fit in a grocery bag. My cheapest date was with the gorgeous athlete while the kids were in daycare and it was just gelato and a drink, so let's say generously $10. (We each paid for our own.) In terms of ultimate pleasure, was that better than almost seven bags of books? That's not even possible!
I guess I may not have given updates on the two tinder dates. One was with a woman who was 40 minutes late because she thought the start time was 30 minutes later than it was and we talked about her interesting master's thesis and her work with survivors of human trafficking. (All of my first dates have involved talking about sexual violence, but I swear that's not my fault!) She never contacted me after and so I let it drop.
The other I did talk about here, the YA librarian who maybe talks during movies. We met at a pinball arcade-bar, didn't play any pinball, did play as team Blind Date in their pub trivia and came in second. I said she should keep the $10 drink coupon because she lived near there and because I didn't think I was going to want to go out with her again, and I thought about it a day or two and then told her I would be taking a break from dating and did so. She's one of the people I messaged when election results were coming in and now we're happy fb friends.
And now it's time to go take a child to the doctor's office because that's what I do with my life.
30: well presumably you are hoping/believing that there will be a potential date with a potential someone that would be more fun than a bag of books. (If not, then I would think maybe you don't really want to date? If you don't want to, don't.)
So, all you story illustrates is that gorgeous athlete did not pass the more-fun-than-a-bag-of-books test. So, she doesn't deserve a childcare refund. That's the system working as it was intended.
Thorn I do not believe we are yet friends at the other place but I would like your feedback on whether my new hair says, or at least suggests, "I would like to have sex with women." I wanted it to. I think it might yet be ambiguous, though I'm also starting to think about messing with gender presentation in other ways. Sadly, I'm about to lose my job so it's not the best time to shop for clothes.
Not Thorn here, and it is a great haircut on you, but I would not call it strongly suggestive of non-straightness, although I couldn't pick it apart to say why. (Very short boyish/pixie cut, for those who haven't seen pictures.) But with the right clothes it should send the message you're looking for.
I'm thinking about getting my hair cut (today) like Princess Diana circa 1980.
I'm theoretically dating, but don't actually have any fun stories. Coffee with two guys off OKCupid so far, both perfectly pleasant. One turned into a date to a banjo/Chinese zither concert, and petered out after that, the other went dark for six weeks and then texted to ask if I wanted to go to a movie, which, after six weeks, I didn't.
Coffee plans with some guy off Tinder tomorrow. Tinder is weird.
One turned into a date to a banjo/Chinese zither concert...
The same old story.
One turned into a date to a banjo/Chinese zither concert...
Elaborate euphemism! Took me a minute to decode.
More fun than I expected. Bela Fleck sat in for a few songs, which is lost on me because I'm not much with music, but I know banjo fans will be impressed.
But as a date, eh. Very nice dude, but it was sort of like when you've got a friend's cousin in from out of town and you're amusing them for the evening.
Sorry to hear about the job Tia but I'm sure me the haircut rocks. I was gonna get a new haircut myself today but I've had a few too many drinks and that might be problematic in this county.
Thanks, Mossy and Barry. Re: luck, I certainly need it. There was a halcyon time, maybe 2009-2011, when just about everywhere I went if it was possible to make out with a woman it wound up happening, often with me not entirely understanding how it did. I'm not 100% sure what accounted for that, although it may have had something to do with how frequently I was simultaneously drunk and dancing. But I'm getting older and less tolerant of alcohol and staying up late and I don't know if I can reproduce those methods.
It is surprisingly difficult trying to date when (a) you've got two teenage kids to make dinner for every night (oh, I can leave them alone and go out, but not without planning it), and more fundamentally (b) you hate everyone.
Tia, sorry about the job. On the basis of the pic elsewhere, it's a great haircut and a good look for you generally, but I wouldn't think it particularly screamed that message.
45: How old are the kids these days? Surely you can text them to make their own dinner on occasion? (I don't date when I have the girls--they're too young to leave alone and I'm unwilling to pay a babysitter when I have ~3 nights a week open. This occasionally makes scheduling a bear, and all of the concerts I want to go to are on nights I have the girls, but that's the way it goes.)
Hating everyone, well, I find that alcohol helps.
Tia, sorry, your haircut is cute and attractive but does not read "wants to kiss girls" to me.
Oh, it's not impossible or anything, it's just a scheduling consideration that makes things slightly stickier. The kids are as self-sufficient as one could possibly hope for, but I still want to be reliably around for dinner mostly.
49: Sometimes. It also sometimes help me hate individuals less.
Not that my schedule has been full enough to make it any kind of a significant issue, what with all of the conflicting hating everyone.
35: I cannot endorse a Princess Di circa 1980 haircut. Maybe your social milieu makes it a fashion-forward choice. In mine it would not read as anything other than bad. Sorry.
If consistently worn with a tiara, it'd be a look.
53: If only people would stop being awful.
Well, I mostly haven't gotten into hating people for being terrible people: the thing about online dating is that I can usually dismiss them for not knowing what commas are before they get a chance to be awful. But screening for minimally acceptable writing style knocks out a remarkably large part of the population.
Then there's politics -- conversation last week:
Him: (Cheerfully enthusiastic burbling about dating possibilities, followed by) I work in non-profit educational policy.
Me: Tell me you don't work for Eva Moskowitz.
Him: [Dead air].
Belatedly cosign 3. I'll send stuff to whoever wants, but I don't think the unfogged addresses work reliably.
Thorn, as long as you're soliciting uninformed opinions, here's mine: It seems like you could use more time for yourself in general. Maybe you could have the babysitter come regularly, once a week, either a weekend night, or the night when your trivia team plays. You can schedule your Tinder dates for that evening, or go to trivia if you want, or if nothing else is happening, take a book to a coffeeshop and spend some time alone. It will give you a regular break from your responsibilities, plus it will make it easier to schedule dates if you know in advance what your free night will be.
I'll join the chorus of men who didn't get the message that wasn't being sent to us.
57: I find that OKC does a reliable job of clearing most unacceptable political leanings off my radar if I stay above the 80% match threshold (either that or my profile stating something along the lines of "I am aggressively liberal and atheist" scares them away). I would think NYC would be dripping in dudes of appropriate political leanings.
57 "Diane Ravitch" would have gotten him laid.
Sorry if I'm out of line. I'm home now but still btocked.
60: The message wasn't intended for us.
I only ever give the same advice, which is: more (useful) people in the system. Au pair? You moved out of the giant house, right? So you can't invite another single mom to move in and share the parenting. You probably don't want to move to co-housing right now, since you just moved.
You can address some of the aspects of loneliness without finding romantic or sexual partners. Can you work in one of those hipster work/freelance offices?
59: Ha, I'm trying to talk myself up to once a month. Going three months between sitters was awful and more than I could bear, so now I have to do better than that. But I run into a problem like Chopper's. Right now Lee returns one girl at 7:30 Tuesday so I can do bedtime and homework if it's Mara. The other goes 5:30-7:30 Wednesday, which overlaps with when Nia has CrossFit. Thursdays they're always with me, so I could do something outside the house at least when I'll have them all for the whole weekend. I hate that there's so much splitting and shuffling, which makes Lee's life easier and mine harder. This isn't a particularly good excuse for why it seems like too much work to leave the house, but it's what I've got. Anything I do leaves someone feeling left out, but I need more breaks.
I can usually dismiss them for not knowing what commas are
That commas are apostrophes that have lost their vestigial flying capabilities?
I only ever give the same advice, which is: more (useful) people in the system. Au pair?
I get that au pairs are stereotypically young and cute, but dating someone you employ seems wrong.
AIUI au pairs aren't traditionally paid at all, so she'd actually be dating a chattel, which is fine.
The irritating thing is that my grammar and punctuation are far from flawless. I tend to write by burbling on and throwing in whatever seems like the most likely punctuation mark whenever I would naturally take a breath. And I'm sure there are some wonderful people out there with a weak grasp of sentence structure. But I still can't do it.
54: JUST YOU WAIT!
There's a million things you haven't done.
72: Begins two consecutive sentences with coordinating conjunctions. *swipes left*
As a fellow member of the tribe of grammatical hypocrites, I entirely understand.
71. The Roman poet Horace actually wrote a poem in praise of shaggingraping his slaves because it was so much less trouble than dating. So there's a precedent.
Did I mention that I went right off Horace when I learned that?
75: Wow. The ancients sucked.
76/77: The proper term for it is VRML.
Tia's haircut reads "I want to kiss that girl" to me.
I endorse 59.
I guess 79.1 is perhaps inappropriately flippant? I hadn't really read the whole thread, I confess.
I disagree with my esteemed colleague in 79.1. It certainly wouldn't rule out girl-kissing but the boyish/pretty piece is clear but not at all decisive. On the other hand, Punchy and I have both had several less-flattering versions of that haircut in the last year, so I don't even know. You can almost never TELL by the haircut but you can guess, and I wouldn't quite lean toward making assumptions about you, but I also tend more conservative than most on that point.
I knew what you meant even before 72. That literate quality is something you know when you see it, even when other rules might be broken. A few words are often enough.
"You can tell by the I cut my hair, I'm a woman's woman. No time to talk."
For everyone who went to bed with the dictionary.
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Stream of consciousness follows.
I will feel bad all day for literally picking my child up and carrying her to school because she woke up at 8 and refused even the most minimal morning routine, despite increasingly frantic reminders that it was now too late to eat breakfast etc. I don't know how to fight this "the clock is not real" mode of engagement. The only time is the time of resistance! Who can't sympathize with that? (But also FUCKING EAT THE BREAKFAST, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, I want to scream at least once a week, although this is the first time she's actually left one uneaten.) I assume she's sitting in the kindergarten classroom dizzy with longing for her abandoned breakfast sandwich now. Maybe it will be a lesson? Maybe it will just feel like an island of pointless torture in a larger sea of pointless torture, as I suspect many "lessons" do. How can I teach her to befriend the clock? It is her sworn enemy at the moment.
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My kids are old enough to be left alone now so it's not an issue, but I used to ditch work and go on lunch dates while they were at school to avoid having to line up other child care. Since I tend to either date people with cushy jobs like mine that allow a lot of flexibility or hot unemployed 27-year-olds, a lot of people can manage it then, and it keeps the first date predictably short, which is good.
84. Is she OK at school? Nobody picking on her/ignoring her? Teacher vaguely humanoid?
I disagree with my esteemed colleague in 79.1.
I must have expressed myself poorly. I meant that it reads "I, nosflow, want to kiss that girl". It's a joke, see, in that it ascribes to the haircut something which actually is proper to me.
87: Ohhhhhh! Possibly I'm one of those people who's too stupid to date LB.
67: I'm the anti-Megan, sorry. It's so wonderful to be able to work at home where I can put the dog out and run laundry and get dinner started too, plus I never have to talk to anyone. (Except today with a kid home from school. She yelled from her bed and I'm not investigating because she'll text if it's serious.) Similarly, cohousing is not for me now, though I'm happy to watch the little girl next door or let the girls go out and play with her or her cousins down the block.
Having help would make a huge difference, but I lost a few friends in the breakup and most well before that, when I couldn't reliably leave the house because Lee would sabotage it. Working on building a community of support but also just getting out and trying to find people I enjoy spending time with is my top priority now. And in a shotgun-style house with the girls at one end and me at the other, there's nowhere to put anyone else that would be fair, plus I'd feel bad bringing an au pair into this level of drama.
Remind me again of who kicks whose ass playing trivia?
Right, I suppose I can also preen that I don't have a trivia team anymore (because of truly unpleasant unwanted-hitting-on) and play and win solo while knitting and drinking. I don't put that in my dating profile in those words, though, because everyone knows smugness caused all blogs to become all politics all the time.
86: I certainly haven't heard about any problems. I'm sure she's bored, and may not realize that she's bored, because strictly speaking they are teaching her things she doesn't yet know. But I suspect it's being done in a very tedious way.
Thorn, you're caring and ethical in the way you treat others in your life-- even without the poetry, that means you have a lot to give. Only having slivers of time is pretty normal, everyone knows good people in that position. Get together with people on terms that work for you, you're not going to be exploitative.
If you feel that you're not seeing enough people, I'd echo what others have said about scheduling time for you even if no dating or other focused activity happens. Once every week or every two if that's all that works where you date or play volleyball or drink or whatever.
I've become monogamous after a few dates, so nothing entertaining to report from me. Some of my friends don't like my gf, and some others are not crazy about my ex's bf. A few hilarious but unpleasant exchanges with my ex, best had her throwing food she initially intended to offer as a gift out of the car window while I gave her a ride to a parent-teacher thing.
I personally feel better about the dude after learning that my cat (who lives at my ex's, but she's mine) should be nicer to his enormous and kindly dog.
Oh god, if I ever have to be in a car with my ex again, I don't know what I'll do. (I guess I have been, post-breakup, and it was hilarious in its way and deeply unpleasant.) Per the coparenting agreement we're still and forever working on in therapy, we've had our last joint parent-teacher thing, at least.
And thanks! I'm getting much more helpful and less ridiculous suggestions than I expected.
Thanks for the haircut feedback, all. I knew it was likely not enough, and I wasn't in a situation where I could say to the hairstylist, make me look queer. It was a free haircut and she was a white woman who lives in some town I hadn't heard of in Idaho who had flown in for the hairstyling class. I'll get other haircuts and other chances. I just wanted to try to work my way towards presenting as less femme, at least on some days. It's a first step! Just cutting it off in the first place represents overcoming a big hurdle. I'd had an appointment to do it a month earlier that I chickened out of.
I don't think there's any haircut that's enough nowadays, if that's any consolation. It looks like a very versatile cut for playing with gender presentation, which is fun!
My only suggestion is to evaluate all romantic impulses by asking "would I watch this TV show?" rather than "is this a good idea?"
I don't think there's any haircut that's enough nowadays
I guess I meant: enough to get into the realm of pretty suggestive. My roommate has come home with haircuts in that category. And in fact, my roommate only sleeps with men, but she's also interested in masculine gender presentation, so, she's queer in that sense. But you're right, I think I can change how femme my hair looks depending on how spiky I make it, whether I have the bangs over my forehead or not, etc. I should mess around.
That is seriously a great haircut on you -- I might stick with it purely on the grounds that whether you want to date women or men, looking good can't hurt, and focus on other signifiers (clothes whatever) to up how queer you look.
100. bob concurs. So do I, especially after 1:10 or so.
Have you considered wearing a sandwich board sign advertising your desire to kiss women? A little less subtle but harder to misinterpret, I think.
No, but neither do I believe that the key to kissing women is having just the right haircut.
This is my sign saying I adore peep. 105 was and is perfect!
What is the key to kissing women?
I can demonstrate it but not put it into words.
109: Awww! Thanks, Thorn! I'm glad somebody appreciates my little bitchiness.
110: You just put your lips together and blow.
110: Yoryis Yatromanolakis hasn't spoken on the issue?
110: Yoryis Yatromanolakis hasn't spoken on the issue?
I'm nearly positive that there's a chapter concerning erotic bussing, but I don't have the book with me, sad to say.
erotic bussing,
One of the less successful implementations of the Supreme Court's historic decision in Loving v. Virginia.
Also, LB, I am genuinely surprised that you remembered his name.
Wait, urple, I'm really curious what you'd guess my type is!
I didn't, but I remembered enough of the passage to search the archives for it. In the absence of google, I am a pathetic shell of a woman.
112: It turns out these are supposed to be instructions for whistling. I guess I'm not surprised to find out I've been doing it wrong all these years. But then again I can't whistle either.
oh, goodness gracious. I knew the haircut wouldn't be sufficient in and of itself, or for that matter, even necessary, because during the aforementioned halcyon period women seemed sexually interested in me and I had long hair. I am also going to bring my hair to places where the women of all colors are at. But I don't think it's a bad thing to try to signal. And anyway, I was interested, for its own sake, in trying to look less femme. Which I don't think I quite succeeded in, but I'm working on it.
I guess I could just walk into a bar and say "Who among the ladies wants to sex Tia?" but I think B-Wo should try it first, substituting his name.
May I recommend some combat boots and a faded army-green jacket or coat?
If only you could see the look I'm shooting at my computer screen now, paired with brown corduroys and baroque floral blazer.
The Plain People of Ireland: Who in heaven's name is that?
Myself: That's my pal, Mr Claude ffoney. He's a painter.
The Plain People of Ireland: A house painter?
Myself: O, indeed, no. "The Poddle at Blessington", "Maket Place, Tours", and so on.
The Plain People of Ireland: Then why is he wearing a workman's pants?
Myself: Them's corduroys, and luscious purple articles they are, too.
The Plain People of Ireland (doubtfully): It's very hard to be up to you intellectual lads.
You know I had initially had "scornful look" for "dismissive look" in 124? What concord!
I suspect purple corduroy makes everything better. May have to test that. Bless Myles!
I'll get it if you subsidize its purchase.
You got me there. It's a lovely thing, though.
I don't think I understand the sizing. Nobody has a 57 cm chest.
I'm pretty sure that, contra the website name, the man who wears that jacket walks alone.
Nobody has a 57 cm chest.
Measured roughly an inch or so beneath the armpits on the jacket, across the front, IIRC; it's not the circumference of the chest or anything. Lots of people do. (I have a roughly 20" chest on this measurement scheme.)
I'm not convinced those colors would be ace on you, neb. The print is nice, though.
If somebody wants to play a prank on me, they could buy me this jacket.
Ooh, the silhouette on 140!
For people playing along at home, it looks like you can maybe delete the two hours of one-on-one time the little ones have with her, which would make scheduling a whole lot easier for me.
Wow, Thorn. How are the little ones feeling? Is it an unmixed blessing for you?
Wow Thorn. She is something, isn't she?
Finding someone better than a bag of books is super hard. Especially if it's a bag of like Agatha Christie (I just reread Murder on the Orient Express and it's still so good). But also it sounds like you need some nice friends? Some folks you can call once a month to make dinner while you help the girls with their homework. Maybe doing something social and looking for mom friends would be useful. Is there a university around? Yoga? Running clubs?
140: It took me a minute to realize the site wasn't called "Norman walks alone."
143: I should try to read that. I've been meh about some of her books, but liked others.
I have a weird cold and beer doesn't even taste good. I need to read something.
I'm starting to feel more interested in the "bash" idea from Too Like the Lightning, a basic domestic unit not the nuclear family but 6-10 like-minded friends, possibly including couples and jointly raised children. I'm suffering from the babysplosion among my local friends.
I meant to message the babysitter and set up a regular night out as suggested above, but the evening got away from me. I made a friend, though! I moderate two facebook groups for politically progressive foster parents and a new member is from Cincinnati and she and her partner sound amazing and we want to get our kids together and hang out soon.
The ending one-on-one time isn't definite and so I haven't told the girls, but Mara has been asking to stop for a while and for several months earlier in the fall as often as not they wouldn't want to leave daycare and so she'd just message me that she wouldn't be getting them, which has to hurt. Selah is still very bonded to her and maybe a little too concerned about wanting her to be happy, but the older girls have been increasingly distancing themselves. It's hard and there isn't really a right way to deal with it all.
Moby, read the Orient Express! I should probably find a book club. I went to the library's for a while and it was tolerable. There are universities. I'd like to have friends over to dinner, but that requires my being healthy enough to clear the boxes off the dining room table and get all their contents put away, which won't happen until I guess the new year sometime. My newly retired mom has offered to come help, but I'm not sure I could handle having her touch my stuff. She is planning to be more involved in taking the girls places and spending time with them, which would help a lot. And she's done things like mulch my roses, which I probably could have done but it was a lot easier to let her do it in 10 minutes than fuss with whatever I'd have needed to in my boot to get it done. Augh, life is stupid and annoying right now.
But in a lot of ways I'm feeling good and optimistic. Tomorrow we'll go to Ikea and I'll order the rest of my bookcases to get the living room finished at least so we can put a tree in next weekend. (I proved months ago I can assemble bookcases without straining my ankle, though I may call in friend backup for some of it.) Eventually I'll take some sewing classes or something, learn a skill, find people to talk to. Life is good (and tough!) and going to get better. I love my little family so much and that will get us through a lot together.
All happiness to Super-Thorn!
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Can anyone recommend a basic book/guide for social science research design and analysis? I might have cause to do some minor stuff at work. I've casually studied enough psychology to have a rough idea of what a study should look like, but have never formally studied RDA. And haven't done math since high school, where I wasn't good at it. I'm looking to avoid making dumb mistakes, basically.
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"Designing Social Inquiry" by King, Keohane, and Verba was supposed to be the big one from twenty years ago. I don't actually remember what it said or if I liked it.
Possibly somebody wrote a new one.
For the math, "How to lie with statistics" remains a good introduction for regular people.
The UCLA department of stats also has good stuff.
Oh and since I put this in the OP, I should say that it's not as if I have some amazing insight into Greek lyric poetry. I just chose an allusion as my username in case anyone was ever surprised and delighted by that. I know more than the average person, sure, but I can't even remember who wrote that kind of nice poem about the halcyons and the other ocean birds, which is presumably not the kind of insightful commentary someone who actually knew and loved lyric poetry would want. I'm not entirely hopelessly obscure and not only willing to settle for someone who is, but I was reminded recently of the line from I Capture the Castle about "It is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know." This place is good for that. It would be nice to find some more real-life space where that's the case, and I think it's possible. Maybe not for romance, but I don't care as much about that as being able to speak and be heard sometimes.
If this is the thread where we share dating stories, I guess I might as well mention that I matched with someone on Tinder a few weeks ago whom I already knew slightly through the Young Dems, and we've gotten together several times since for pleasant conversation and casual sex. (The first time was actually election night. Silver linings!) So that's been nice.
It would be nice to find some more real-life space where that's the case
fersher
Oh yes. I realize I'm about the last person here anyone would hit up for stimulating intellectual talk, but I miss those grad school friendships (that for a while seemed pretty blog-accessible! and no longer, alas) so intensely. No easy substitute.
I would totally hit you up for stimulating intellectual talk. Uh, laydee.
I too found that an odd disclaimer.
Anyway, I have just confirmed with the girl from 157 another assignation for tomorrow night. So there's that.
dat dat daaa / da dat dat daaa/ the girl from 157
Chopper, pics are now in the flickr pool for your approval.
I have long since lost access to the Flickr pool. Who has admin rights and can send me an invite? Do I need to set up a new Flickr account?
You need a flickr account and a nipple selfie.
(Ogged, smasher, and heebie have the keys. Asking publicly is usually enough to get you in, but you do actually need a flickr account.)
To get a Flickr account, you need a Yahoo account. Or at least I did. Maybe Yahoo doesn't exist now? I get confused.
Date. And report back on any horror stories or fabulous stories.
I would also like to be admitted to the Flickr pool. My e-mail is linked, and I will perform whatever initiation rite is required.
159: Are you high? Or does Michael Jordan like to claim he's not that good at basketball, and I just never knew?
Wait, urple, I'm really curious what you'd guess my type is!
I can't say I have a detailed profile but I would guess that a minimum screening threshold would be "not a suspected Trump voter". (Although I would also have guessed that "woman" would be a minimum screening threshold, so obviously I may not have a good barometer.)
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a barometer.
Can I get added to the flicker pool too?
I'm super excited for you teo! I keep wanting to set you up with my friends (if the locations ever worked out) because you seem like just the sort of guy they go for.
Oh, man. I've always thought being set up by friends would be fascinating, but being set up by URPLE with a man who's maybe a Trump voter and almost certainly someone I'm going to just see around seems like it's probably too bad an idea to try even for the sake of the blog. I'm guessing what we have in common is "single" plus city of residence?
You owe it to us to try and report back.
183 same.
How are things Clytie?
Please sir/madam, may I join the pool too?
Okay but in the tv show it would be dinner somewhere no one either of us knows would see us and that's all, right?
(Except see us on tv, obviously. There's be the usual reality tv conceit that you can talk about very secret private things and it doesn't count because it's just for national broadcast.)
In the tv show he is actually a gay woman living as a man due to a complicated inheritance dispute. After many comic misadventures all is revealed, he/she inherits a billion dollars, and you all sail off into the sunset on the wine-dark Ohio.
The possibly-supporting-Trump thing had better be some serious misdirection too. And don't even get me started on the state heading toward allowing charter schools!
He/she is doing a double-agent thing against the Republican uncle executing the estate. Like I said, complicated.
181: I don't think I claimed you had anything in common. I'm not even completely sure he's single.
191: Speaking of which, any updates?
191: Oh, well in that case he might have already hit on me and I turned him down. I don't think any single guys have here, or not that I can recall.
Seriously. She has no idea how many married guys she's teasing.
184 ugh, I wish I could give an answer other than "shitty." Which sounds flip, but further details would be identifying and aren't mine to give. It's very kind of you to ask.
Under those circumstances, Clytie, maybe I shouldn't deprive you of tv-worthy life updates from here.
I would watch the TV show in 181.
Only if he turns out to be worse than she could have imagined, and she winds up beating him to death with a baseball bat, while her hair dangles insouciantly about her face.
Only if he turns out to be worse than she could have imagined, and she winds up beating him to death with a baseball bat, while her hair dangles insouciantly about her face.
There's little a woman cannot do with impunity if her hair dangles insouciantly about her face.
Flickr pool - email me with the email address you'd like to use. Any email is good enough for me to send you an invite, I don't know if they make you use a special yahoo one anymore once you're invited.
Thorn, I don't have any good advice for you, but your post about dating as a single parent made me think of this great podcast episode I listened to the other day, and I think you might like it. https://longestshortesttime.com/episode-102-w-kamau-bell-asks-his-mom-about-sex-update/
Random advice bleg, maybe not worthy of a full-fledged ATM, also having to do with gender presentation stuff.
A couple of months ago at the birthday party I held jointly with a friend, there was an awkward interaction between two people, neither of whom I'm super close to, but both of whom I've very friendly with. One of them, a pretty gender non-conforming man, current partner to a close female friend of mine, has taken a name that is obviously not his given name, and is definitely not very masculine. He goes by it exclusively and never mentions his given name. Another friend is a het woman, only distinctive, sexual-identity wise, for being non-monogamous, but she has had experience with people being kind of belligerent when they can glean she has multiple partners so you'd think she'd be sensitive to people demanding conformity. At my birthday party people were drinking and she pressured Friend 1 pretty heavily into telling her his given name, which he consistently refused. When she left she said to him, "I met you, but I guess I still don't know your name, because you won't tell me." It was uncomfortable, and after she left I drunkenly kneeled by him and said, "She is generally a lovely person, but that was so shitty and I'm sorry," which he told me the next day he really appreciated. For context, by the norms of this group of people, that behavior is bonkers. We are not -- as you might surmise, given that I am among them -- a bunch of rough and tumble jocks. We are collectively maybe 90% some variety of queer or trans. We are sensitive nerds who respect people's pronouns, and it should go without saying, their chosen name.
Now my roommate is throwing a holiday party, and both these people have RSVP'd yes. I have reason to believe, due to all the relationships involved, that they haven't seen each other since this interaction. Should I try to speak to this woman to make sure that she doesn't push my friend about his name again?
Should I try to speak to this woman to make sure that she doesn't push my friend about his name again?
My gut feeling: if you're asking the question then the answer is, "yes."
I think it should be possible to have a not-too-awkward conversation about it and if you feel like you know her well enough to approach her about it then doing so is probably good.
Best case scenario, she felt sort of weird about it after the fact but isn't sure if it was really out of line or not. You can both confirm that it was strange and that you noticed at the time, but that it isn't anything she should feel guilty about and that Friend 1 isn't holding a grudge (assuming that's true) and just generally give her an outlet to work through any mild anxiety that she might have.
Worst case she doesn't understand why it's an issue or why you're bringing it up, and it seems like it should be possible to talk through that.
Should I try to speak to this woman to make sure that she doesn't push my friend about his name again?
Yes, obviously.
This should have been sent to neb as an ATM.
Is it possible the woman was trying to serve papers on him?
Ok, followup. The only time before our party that I'm going to see her in person is at her holiday party, which is the day before ours. Should I do this in person at the party, or via email?
If only all questions were so definitively answered. Thanks, neb. Thanks, all.
I'm super excited for you teo! I keep wanting to set you up with my friends (if the locations ever worked out) because you seem like just the sort of guy they go for.
Thanks! And definitely continue to keep me in mind if any of your friends end up in a compatible location.
Uh, if anyone has friends with whom they want to set me up, feel free.
Just don't make vague noises and never follow through, cough dq cough.
Urple has a friend here who may or may not be Trumpy and may or may not be single, neb. Have at him!
I'll add my name to the list of folks happy to accept set ups. Seeking mental whateverness in Minneapolis/St. Paul. A former commenter was kind enough to provide an endorsement to a position Ely fascinating Tinder match, but timing alas rendered that platonic.
Heebie, I'll be in touch re Flickr tomorrow.
Position Ely = positively. New phone keyboard i
s giving me fits.
I'm very curious in general about setups. As I've said, I've never been on either end of one and they seem interesting but potentially very stressful.
Apologies neb! Life has been overfull and somewhat rocky the last half year or so and a couple of people managed to get themselves attached when I was distracted by work and worries.
I admit I've been kind of annoyed when friends in the past have offered unprompted to set other friends up but not me, but on the other hand my response would probably be a hesitant "thanks" and maybe a barely suppressed grumble. I'm not against it, but it seems almost like more of an obligation to the setter up not the set up with.
On the other hand, I'm available.
Am at airport leaving for week amongst wow wow hip grad students so will keep antennae peeled and twitching for singles looking for love. No promises re geographical suitability. Well, no promises re anything to be honest.
Apropos, I found a nice message on OKC that I hadn't been notified of, but the sender's profile was hidden to me. After I responded, she apparently unhid it - and oh hey, she's just looking for women. Who knows, maybe a friend possibility.
So I'm like 90% sure I just encountered the "Fuck it, I quit" lady on Tinder. Her profile includes the word "rebelutionary," because of course it does. I swiped right. Will update if anything further develops.
223: sometimes people forget to updat their list of what they're looking for, which can be a useful excuse to send a message about gee I'm not sure if you realize it but your profile is showing to people outside Prefererred Groupand I just wanted to make sure you know so you're reaching the people you want to. It hasn't led to any dates but neither does much else and it feels like a (very minor) good deed.
224 Context? I think I missed something (as unlikely as that seems to me, I read all the comments here).
"Fuck it, I quit" footage. (That aired live on local TV news.) Subsequent developments.
Well that was a highly unusual full disclosure statement.
Political, outspoken, and beautiful. Sounds like a good match. But do you partake?
I do not. It would be an awkward match at best. But it may result in a good story.
229. Ah, too bad for you. She looks like she get stoned.
Looks like she's going to jail, so you could do an extended series.
She looks like she get stoned.
Ya think?
Looks like she's going to jail, so you could do an extended series.
We'll see. The second link in 227 says at the end that "experts" think she's unlikely to spend decades in prison, but without elaboration on who says that or why. The case hasn't been getting much coverage in the local media here so I don't know any more about it than that.
Wait, you're dating her?? That video is just about my favorite thing ever.
No, I encountered her on a dating app and expressed potential interest in dating her. See 224.
Eh, swiping right was fine. We'll see if anything happens.
I am trying to be more generous about swiping right on people, but still no one likes me. I should maybe change my primary picture.
I am trying to be more generous about swiping right on people, but still no one likes me. I should maybe change my primary picture.
Swiped right on my middle little brother's ex-girlfriend I didn't realize was back in town. That's not weird, right? It would be nice to chat with her, though I can do that through fb already. (The older little brother and I accidentally dated the same girl in high school, which he as the later of the two didn't realize until she showed some artsy but luckily not compromising photos she'd taken of me.)
which he as the later of the two didn't realize until she showed some artsy but luckily not compromising photos she'd taken of me
Flickr pool.
Also, use one of them as your Tinder profile pic.
I never got copies of them because I didn't actually go out with her again after the night she took the pictures, so I have no idea where they are or what they look like. (Well, they look like a scrawny 17-year-old me in old men's red pants and a gaudy '70s rose-print tank top, presumably, though maybe in black and white.)
225: No, the sequence of events was, I got her message, clicked, and saw "This profile is private or does not exist", so I knew almost nothing about her besides a little in a hoverover (tiny photo, age, gender). I wrote back, including something like "BTW, I can't actually see your profile, hope you didn't call it quits". The next day, it's visible and I can see she's gay. My guess is she made her profile briefly visible as response to my message.
244: She may have had the "don't let straight people see me" option turned on, I would guess.
I have that in my car, but it doesn't work or everybody is gay.
246: Huh, I thought the Bengals fans who say that about Pittsburgh were just being homophobes.
I'm at a hibachi restaurant, because culture.
Shouldn't that go in the thread where you were talking to Bob? Or are you on a DATE?
Family Cultural Imperialism Night.
I thought in the Hick household every night was!
That was full of racial harmony and non-ironic people.
245: Right. Or just men, in her case.
254: I'm not sure it lets you do that, though someone said maybe if you pay you can. But if you choose a non-straight orientation, there's an immediate checkbox about whether you want to be shown to straight people or not. Tinder is completely non-transparent in that regard, which seems weird. I have no idea if the women I see are straight. The men it shows me even though I've asked it not to all seem to be.
Watching great documentary about some guy from Indonesia who sold one of the Koch brothers millions of dollars of fake wine. He got caught and everything, but he seemed to really have enjoyed himself.
I downloaded the HER app for women, except it doesn't let you designate your gender as "woman" though just about anything else works. I have no idea how much I'm going to mess things up for myself by choosing "queer" over "lesbian," but you get even less space to say anything about yourself than on tinder and so it's totally just whether you think the other person is hot, which requires a lot more soul-searching than I can maybe handle. Anyhow, I guess recommended for those who need it. I've had two matches in the last few hours, though probably just because I'm new.
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