Loved this game back in the day. I never finished it because one level made me sick, but it was so fun I really regretted not playing all of it.

If I eat something that has gone bad and I get food poisoning, I might be unable to eat that food for a long time afterwards. Even if I really want to and miss it and am super careful to make sure it’s safe. I might feel mildly sick even just from the smell of it. My body is just trying to protect me, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that food, but it sucks. Given time, and in some cases careful cautious introduction, I might be able to get it down again. Had this experience with a pot pie once, and it took a couple years to eat them again, even when I looked at the box and thought I wanted it for dinner.

With people, the reintroduction process feels unfair. It is unfair. You aren’t the same person who hurt her, but unfortunately you’re introducing similar feelings or experiences. She wants to kiss people again, she liked kissing people in the past, and she wants to kiss you specifically, when she considers you. But when the moment arrives, or she thinks about the moment arriving in reality, her body goes DANGER DANGER because one time she kissed someone and a horrible thing happened.

It’s unfair to her, too. This is an unbelievably shitty thing to have to work through. She might even desperately want a relationship with someone kind, like I’m sure you are, but if she isn’t able to know how long it will be until you can have the physical relationship you both want, it makes sense that she’d step back from you. This could take years to resolve, or it might never resolve. She might be being kind to you by turning you down, or she might be being selfish because she doesn’t think she can handle navigating someone else’s feelings while hers are so intense. It’s fine if her reason is either, or both.

So, yeah, what she’s describing sounds pretty normal for someone with trauma. I hope life treats you both with more kindness and you meet someone who can return your feelings, and she figures out a treatment that helps her find peace.

I can’t find any studies on this. I don’t really trust personal perception for this one, and I’m also curious.

Never sure how to answer this one, since I’m bi and like f/f as well. I tend to like particular dynamics in romance, and men are more likely to be depicted having some of them. There are some other dynamics women are more likely to be depicted having with each other, and when I’m in the mood for those stories I read more f/f.

Coral Island! It’s been out a while but they had a major update recently. My farming/crafting life sim stretch continues.

It’s interesting to hear from someone who used something like it. I never even thought about how much sweat would be a problem.

You never have to feel a particular way. If anyone says you have to feel bad, or that you shouldn’t feel bad if you do, they’re wrong. Not how feelings work. Some people feel better knowing that their abusers are shit because their folks are shit, and it had very little to do with you, other than your convenience as a victim when they wanted to hurt someone. But what you feel just is.

I try to just look at what I’m feeling, and accept it, without judgement. Don’t turn away, but don’t dwell. It makes it easier to decide reasonable action later. Not detached from emotion (impossible) but understanding it as a part and not the entirety of behavior, where right and wrong start to come into play.

I hope the kitten continues to improve. They’re so fragile.

The thought of reaching into my toolbox and pulling out a measuring tape that’s labeled wrong without knowing it. He did a good job with this comic. That thought sucks so bad.

This hurts so bad to think about

I was going to answer and then realized that the last kid I would’ve watched when they got their first electronics is now 13. Time…is marching on…

Is it a grievance or mild irritation? People constantly annoy each other over small things. If someone is genuinely deeply angry to the point where it’s a grievance about the little things in the original post, that’s a different matter.

If “sorry” for small inconveniences feels wrong, other vocalizations can take their place and serve the same purpose. Like “whoops” for dropping something or “hello, what do you need? i have to get back to this pretty quickly, though” for getting pulled out of work by someone with a question.

It doesn’t feel fake to me because this is just how “sorry” is used in these contexts. “social lubricant to move on from minor inconveniences and acknowledge the other party’s humanity” may not be in the dictionary, but it’s how it’s used over and over again, and that’s what language is. Shared, agreed on meaning. Is this prone to huge amounts of error? yup! Communication sucks when you aren’t naturally inclined to pick up non literal meanings for things.

Normally, I’d tack on an apology here for rambling, or going on so long, just as an acknowledgement that my inability to say things consisely is an inconvenience to read for other people. That would make this a shorter paragraph, and hopefully make people more inclined to engage in their reply to me with good faith, since I’ve shown my awareness that what I typed could’ve been a slog for them to read.

There are times when apologies are more of a social lubricant or a way to signal you aren’t angry or hostile. Quickly apologizing for not hearing your coworker and asking them what they need might speed things along and get them away from you faster. You don’t need to feel any real sympathy for them. In this situation, an apology is more like a rote phrase said to ease into conversation and allow the other person a few seconds to move from “get their attention” mode back to “thing i need to say to them” mode.

For personal information, the purpose of an apology is just to slightly gentle the blow of not answering the question. Useful for maintaining a neutral relationship with coworkers. If the question is reasonable but you don’t want to answer (how was your vacation? do you like a particular musician?), you might consider tacking on an apology. If the question is out of line or inappropriate in that environment (are you gay? do you have a good relationship with your parents? what’s your body count? why won’t you give me $100?) a lack of apology gives them less opportunity to press.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at with it, but I’m not known for being socially adroit. A real apology is longer and comes with recognition of harm done, etc. You’re so sorry you spilled that coffee on their lap. You’ll watch where you’re going from now on. Do they need a first aid kit or some towels? The kind of day to day apology for not hearing someone is just a brief acknowledgement of them as a human so you can both get on with things.

i can’t see it there since i don’t have a fedia.io account. if the mod was falseprophet i see from other sites they were banned 10 days ago from a bunch of communities. the reason is just “automod,” but i don’t know what that means. I still see them posting on bside 8 hours ago on my own instance.

I want recs for a fun unicycle game

It’s difficult to discuss this issue, because loneliness is so personal. This all is.

I’m glad you asked the question and are trying to genuinely understand where critics are coming from. All of this (like, society) is a mess and we’ve all been hurt and it makes doing better a struggle because, how do you see anything past the pain from your own wounds?

When I was very young, my father would hit me for crying, so when I was a little older, hearing that little boys weren’t supposed to cry just made me go “me neither.” But (without justifying my father) understanding that he did it because society and his own parents fucked him up on this issue, and his parents were fucked up by their parents, makes it possible to envision a way things could be different.

Not everyone gets past that hurt, though. Like a young man abused by his mother dismissing the idea of misogyny. The statistics are just statistics. The memories of that pain are visceral and real.

Most of the criticism of it I’ve seen is about how the concept’s been warped to mean women aren’t putting out enough for specific men. Other people will also point out that modern society is isolating in general. People who aren’t men who are experiencing loneliness might have some skepticism about the idea it’s a man specific issue.

There’s also some wariness because topics about issues men face can translate for some men into a violent rage towards women. As seen with the involuntarily celibate movement.

People of all types can take genuine grievances and find a target to take it out on. Like income inequality translating to hatred of immigrants. And violence towards them. When you’re the mistaken target of those grievances, it can be simplest to want to get away from the conversation unless the person starting it is clear they aren’t targeting you.

Those are my guesses as to why people are skeptical.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263527043 Some discussion in here about the topic, but also criticisms of the topic.

https://trinitonian.com/2025/02/14/unpacking-the-myth-of-the-male-loneliness-epidemic/ This opinion article criticizes how influencers drive the conversation, to its detriment.

https://www.fridaythings.com/recent-posts/male-lonliness-crisis-incel-men-friendship-mental-health This person brings up the idea that women are wary of the idea because it seems like they’ll be expected to individually solve it regardless of their own wants and needs.

The grass might not be greener and maybe you should keep the better paying job, but you should keep in mind that living a life filled with stress is like eating a little poison evey day. It’s not a huge deal, each individual dose, but it adds up.

Stress hormones do their own damage, but also - when my mental health sucks, I don’t bother to put on sunscreen. I don’t eat right. That adds up, too. Of course when money’s tight, you can’t avoid stress. But even if you don’t change jobs now, you should probably be looking to change something soon. You’re at an age where the consequences of that stress will start to pop up. Me too.

I don’t know if you should take the new job, but I do think you should consider your mental health a high priority. Under money, maybe, but other people have given good advice here on various pros and cons to consider with that.

I was hoping someone would post this quote. It’s exactly it.

ooo this definitely evokes a feeling, but I can’t quite place it