I’m worried this is happening to me right now. I’m in my mid-40s and lately the day after all the spicy foods I usually consume have not been pleasant. Is there no fix for this??

My cousin’s mom was a BEAST at Tetris on the original Nintendo back in the 80s.

I feel like people are nicer to each other on here, but maybe it’s just the communities I subscribe to.

When’s the last time you actually used the item, whether it’s clothing, an appliance, dishes, etc? Some things only have a special purpose (holiday decorations, seasonal clothing), but if the item has no special purpose and you haven’t used it in the past 5 years and holds no sentimental value, you should toss or donate it.

A note on sentimental value: If you are tying sentimental value to EVERYTHING or dozens of things of the same type (I don’t mean a collection, I’m talking like “My dad died 10 years ago and instead of keeping 1 or 2 shirts he really liked, I’m keeping his entire wardrobe in 10 crappy old carboard boxes in my living room and they’re all full of clothes moths now, but I won’t throw them away because they have sentimental value to me” kind of behavior), this is an unhealthy coping mechanism that you should address with yourself or with help from a therapist.

Once you have your stuff narrowed down, find a place for each item, and then that’s where that thing lives. The place they live must be reasonable and logical. Clean clothes live in the closet/dresser, they do not live on the floor, draped across furniture, or in the hamper after you’ve washed/dried them.

Appliances live in one spot on your kitchen counter, or in a cabinet/cupboard. Books live on the bookshelf unless you’re actively reading them. Knick knacks live on the shelf, not the floor or in a box on the floor because you plan to some day put them on the shelf and just haven’t gotten around to it. If you’re not gonna put them on the shelf within the next month, box that shit up and put the box in a closet/garage/attic, etc. Storage is an acceptable place for a thing to live, provided you have the room and you’re not just accumulating crap and storing it like a squirrel with nuts that are then forgotten about a month later.

FOOD GETS STORED IN THE KITCHEN. Do not store the half-eaten box of crackers on your nightstand or on the floor next to the couch. Do you want ants? That’s how you get ants.

Him not being a part of my life for about 20 years. We’ve since reconciled to the point where we visit each other about twice a year and call every few months, but the relationship will always be a bit strained.

Hah, I have one of these but I use it for hip support during sex.

I wanted to give a second vote for discord. I’m in several channels that aren’t for videogames but for my other hobbies, and things like age/gender never even really come up because everyone is there to talk about whatever said hobby is. Then again, I do most of my communication through text and not voice and I suppose that can make a difference when dealing with the younger crowds.

I guess I should have said my past “ignorance” instead of my past “views”, because it’s really just assumptions I made based on stereotypes and because I was indeed ignorant. I can remember being in high school (a VERY white high school, we legit had no POCs at all) in my teens and one of my classmates went on vacation to China, and when she got back I asked her didn’t everyone there look the same?? Because all Asians look alike, right?? (please note my sarcasm there)

I remember when I first joined the Army, meeting a black girl my age who loved Metallica and this blew my mind because I’d never known any black people who liked any sort of rock, because they only like rap, right?? (/s). Or when I assumed that trying to manage my own very curly hair was somehow relatable to a black person having to manage THEIR curly hair (it isn’t, at all).

It was never anything outwardly damaging, it was just little ignorant thoughts like that, where I was able to look back on them and be like whoa, I was really wrong/ignorant/racist to assume that. But I also think that that’s part of growing up in America, unfortunately, you don’t realize what’s behind thoughts like that, and yes, I think EVERYONE has those moments of ignorance and covert racism. The trick is to recognize them, learn from them, move on, and not make them again.

Nuke it

I’ve been a short-tempered bitch with people when I really shouldn’t have been. Haven’t been that way in years, but in my youth it happened several times. There’s also been moments I’ve looked back on in my youth and realized I had some views that were the result of institutionalized racism that I didn’t even realize were racist until I’d educated myself years later and realized my poor judgement.

“Chingadera” and a smattering of other Spanish words/slang; “świnia”, which means pig in Polish, because my Grandma says it, and “haiyaaaaaa”, said with a long sigh, thanks Uncle Roger.

I mean, whether or not adults have the time is highly dependent on their daily life schedule. Some adults have more time than others. In my adult life, I’ve had periods where I had no time to play, or could only play casually on the weekends, as well as periods where most of my free time was spent gaming.

Also, if by “luxury” you mean it costs too much, if you have access to the internet, you have access to free video games. Even Steam has free videogames, and you don’t have to have some fancy gaming PC to play some of them.

45yr old woman here, I have never wanted kids. When I was a kid myself and all the other little girls were playing with Barbies and baby dolls, I was playing with Transformers and building forts with the boys outside. When the little girls wanted to play “house”, I was always the pet. Babies and little kids have always had this weird, foreign feeling to me and were something I never wanted to be a part of.

My dad left my mom when I was 8 and my brother was 3. Guess who raised her brother from there on out because mom was working? Add to this that we were poor, it was the 80’s so we were latchkey kids and alone a LOT, and now look at how shitty the world has steadily become since then, and there is no fucking way I was gonna bring a child into it and do that crap all over again, but this time from the very beginning of their lives. Now my aging mother bemoans the fact that she’s the only one left in our extended family that isn’t a grandma (because SURPRISE! My brother is childfree too! Can’t imagine why!), and I have to threaten to stop speaking to her for the hundredth time because I’ve told her I will NEVER have children, do not ask me again.

As I’ve grown into adulthood, there have been so so so many instances where life has gone bad for me, and the FIRST thing I always say to myself is “Thank GOD I don’t have kids!” Every one of those moments would have been exponentially harder if I’d had kids during that time.

Then I look at people I know/have known growing up who have kids, and the ones who have kids with Autism, behavioral issues, major learning disabilities, the parents who know they’re stuck for life with some of these kids, and I thank God again that that is not me, because I dunno how they do it.

Call me selfish, tell me I don’t know what “real love” is, tell me I’m not a “real” woman because I don’t have kids, I don’t give a shit. This is my life, not yours, and I chose not to have kids. “But what if you meet someone you like who has kids!?” I very deliberately only date childfree people, it said as much on all my dating profiles, kids are a deal-breaker. Lo and behold, I’ve been with a childfree partner I found for 5 years. They do exist!

This was me when I was on the pill. I knew exactly what day and what hour it would start.

I love my kids so much I chose not to bring them into this fucked up world.

Back when my brother still lived with my mom, he, a full-grown adult, had a set of four square whiskey stones made of metal that he kept in the back of the freezer that he would add to a glass of whiskey every now and then. One night my mom texts me a picture of the whiskey stones while he’s not in the house with “I FOUND THESE IN THE FREEZER!” “ARE THESE DRUGS???” “WHAT IS THIS??” Like holy fuck, are you serious? Yeah, sure, they’re drugs, Mom. Cubed metal is all the rage on the streets these days. You just swallow them whole and get high as fuck.