When I’m mentally unwell, I isolate myself instead of sharing the load with the loved ones in my life that would jump at the opportunity to support me. I fear being seen in a vulnerable state and given enough rumination I can easily find “reasons” why maybe it would be for the best if I disappeared for a bit instead.

I haven’t been able to directly overcome it yet, but I’ve become aware enough to communicate it and people in my life at least know the signs of it happening now.

all solid advice, also love “Starting Strength” for covering the big five lifts. I’m a big fan of “New Functional Training for Sports” by Michael Boyle too, it’s a little broader and outlines a lot of very useful free weight exercise progressions. “The Muscle and Strength Pyramid” by Eric Helms is also a great resource to introduce program design ideas like periodization, etc.

Sure, but that’s still not necessarily sex?

One can also wear fun undergarments to a date and then decide not to undress or have sex - usually I think of it as “in case something happens” rather than expecting it from the outset. If nobody sees it, it’s not a disappointment, it’s just fun regardless.

🥵

don’t worry I got lost for you :)

it’s a common and frustrating trope for sure.

Today is Sunday, March 2093rd, 2020.

what I’ve learned is that your average confident-looking gym rat can also still have no idea what they’re doing with the equipment. Pretty much everyone needs someone to show em the ropes and get em started at least.

Capitol Hill has been a magnet for right-wingers coming to Seattle this year - most notably an anti-trans rally by a Christian theocratic organization from Spokane that led to counter-protestors clashing with police.

It’s a pretty famous neighborhood for its queer population as well as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHOP/CHAZ) during the 2020 protests, which makes it a target for right-wing agitators despite its strong local community.

This is definitely part of it, parking is pretty hard to find in a lot of downtown. Depending on where you are, traffic can be really bad too, especially over some of the bridges. It’s a very hilly, coastal city limited by its geography in some ways. this video’s a cool explainer on it. The city only has flat land because it burnt down, was regraded, and built back up on top of the old city.

Seattle also just has a pretty good public light rail and bus system. It’s not perfect, but in places where coverage is good it’s great. The city should be leaning into it more, but it’s also very possible to move here and get by without a car. I also suspect (just from my own observation) more people move to Seattle who don’t own a car in the first place.

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

This tracks for how a lot of people use the app, but depending on where you are you can also have some fairly normal (for a dating site) conversations with people as well. I spent a couple months on Grindr despite not being interested in hookups, since it’s a decent way to meet other trans folk in my area. My inbox was mostly dick pics but I also met some amazing people I’m still with several years later!

forreal, people have such low opinion of what kids can understand (because they think kids have all their own same biases automatically)

My partner teaches preschool, sometimes the kids ask her if she’s a boy. She says she used to be but she’s a girl now, the kids say “ohhh” and immediately move on. It only ever gets weird and confusing for the kids when the parents feel the need to argue that point.

One I haven’t seen in this thread yet: the last playable bit of Bastion, if you choose to take Zulf with you. An early example of Supergiant’s mastery of interactive storytelling, coming to a head with a recognition of humanity in the midst of apocalyptic war.

I won’t overhype it, as others are saying it changes up a lot and there’s a particular section near the end that a few people I know bounced off of. It will be a very different experience, built on the same bones, but trying to accomplish something different.

But holy shit, to me it’s an improvement on an already phenomenal game, and builds on its narrative and mechanics in ways I thought were really clever. It feels like the other side of the coin from the main game and bolsters its themes from another perspective. Can’t recommend it enough.

I gotta get around to the other games in the series sometime, To The Moon was incredible. It’s been so long and I don’t remember many specifics, but I do recall it being one of a few games that encouraged me to come to terms with mortality.

Same on both counts. TWD season 1 is absolutely masterful and got me to care for its cast incredibly quickly.

I genuinely can’t believe the renegade interrupt that can happen during that scene in ME3 is in the game. I haven’t gotten spoiler tags to work consistently across Lemmy so I won’t say it but you know the one. One of those times where being given a choice to kneecap an incredible story moment felt really weird. Maybe other players didn’t connect with him as much / had more desire to continue the genophage?

Outer Wilds got me too, for sure, and stayed in my thoughts long after I finished. The music from the slideshow at the end of the DLC still makes me well up a bit. Such an incredible game. I still think of “the universe is and we are” from one of Solanum’s logs all the time.

I was raised around a lot of “patriotism” (closet nationalism) and have had to adapt the feeling now that I understand better what America actually is and has been. I found that trying to abandon the feeling altogether was making me feel cynical and alone. The parts of America that I love in fact tend to exist despite our government and dominant culture, which steals and appropriates the things I love about us and turns them into the things people know about us and dislike for good reason. I love the source materials, not the end result. As a white person born into privilege on stolen land, my existence is not entirely apart from this, but all’s I can do with that is try to make something better of it.

There’s a salt-of-the-earth working-class segment of this country that’s getting screwed over, knows how and why they and others are getting screwed over, and has learned to survive together in spite of it. People that make families out of communities. Rail hoppers, union organizers, queer punks, the list goes on. That spirit is not unique to this country but there do exist uniquely American forms of it. I’m more proud of these people than words can express, and that’s about as close to patriotic as I can feel these days.

Maybe I just like seeing our shitty protestant labor worship turned to something more productive. Maybe I just spent too much time in the mountains to not fall in love with the land itself. Or maybe I just love banjos.

Maybe banning all men from the community is necessary, or maybe just efficient, to fulfill this purpose.

Yeah, that’s more or less how I see the rule too. Ideally it wouldn’t exist, but without something like it in place, the majority of comments in a women’s issues community would come from men, especially on popular/controversial posts, and the mod team would get bogged down trying to keep discussion on topic. The tradeoff is between creating a community where women can speak to each other on these issues, or including men, some of whom would positively contribute to discussion and have their own relevant experiences to offer. The former isn’t really something that exists otherwise on Lemmy and I do feel it’s important to have a community to fulfill that purpose. I don’t see a more inclusive mod policy that’s simple enough to communicate as a rule for WomensStuff, but other communities could definitely step up to fill that role.

The last two bullet points are good ideas and it’d be completely valid imo to respond to a post in WomensStuff in another community including men. (“Guys, how do we feel about this?” kinda threads) [email protected] may be what you’re looking for, it’s primarily for men and masc people but it is open to everyone to comment. (though my impression is that the vast majority of people there are men)

There you’d find discussion of issues men face too, and discussion of women’s issues could be framed around how men can respond to them. I think it’d actually be cool to encourage discussion of women’s issues among men, without women necessarily being present - I have a feeling different opinions and feelings would come up in a men’s community that probably need to be processed and understood, among people with lived experience as a man. Back when I identified as such I personally benefited a lot from browsing /r/MensLib and engaging in those types of discussions. So long as it’s centered around productive discussion rather than blaming women, which I do see these types of communities do a good job of.

vegan communities might be a closer example. A community of people vastly outnumbered by carnivores that have strong feelings about vegans. Generally when a vegan post gets popular, the comments become a bit of a shit fest due to the influx of people with less positive views of veganism. /r/SeattleWA had a similar issue and without effective moderation, turned into a place for non-Seattlites to complain about Seattle.

AFAIK WomensStuff is open to trans women and nonbinary folks - pretty much anyone who identifies with womanhood on some level and can speak on it based on their own personal experience.

as a nonbinary person with lived experience across the gender spectrum I feel at home both in WomensStuff as well as MensLib type communities, so the “windows + linux” example definitely applies in these spaces too.