Change isn’t necessarily impossible, but it’s really difficult and requires a huge amount of self discipline - if someone changes, they will be a standout exception rather then the norm. I urge you to consider that someone who ghosts you likely does not value you enough to be willing or able to put in the effort to change. Ghosting is deeply rude to do to anyone, and especially toward your significant other.

Take my interpretation with a mountain of salt, because I don’t know the full story. But, from what you said, it seems more likely that he reached out to you because you were a convenient backup

Pretty sure lunar effect is a real, scientifically confirmed thing, just known by a different name. Perhaps not the full moon specifically, but we do oscillate according to the moon phase. It’s called circalunar cycles. The name might sound familiar to circadian cycles because they both derive from the same word structure, ie circa-dia (“around a day”) and circa-lunar (“around a month”)

At minimum, I’m quite surprised that Wikipedia lists this as a pseudoscience, because my impression has generally been that circadian researchers acknowledge circalunar cycles as a given

He’s a troll. He’s been making posts like these and then calling everyone who responds as autistic.

Does me having autism increase your chances of finding a significant other?

What?

1. Not really, no. Love and attraction are different things. You don’t need to be attracted to someone you love.

2. Unless you find your partner unattractive, I don’t see how sex could meaningfully change

3. People are good at picking up social cues. That’s probably what you’re referring to. Humans are social creatures, after all. Also, people are trash at picking up social cues, so you’re probably also missing a lot of cues.

4. That sounds like a really bad idea. Your sense of how common those relationships issues occur is warped. People don’t generally go into relationships trying to exploit someone. You’re going to cause issues (moral, logistical, and practical) with your plan, all because of a concern that’s not likely to happen.

5. That’s the vast majority of humans. We are a monogamous species, after all. When you see “alpha males” on the internet, just be aware that they’re grifters that want your money. And the best way to make sure you keep giving them money is to make sure that you stay single and unhappy.

6. Can’t help you there. I can at least tell you that enacting your plan in question 4 is going to lower your chances of finding a wife to 0.

The other comments cover things pretty well, but I feel like I should also pitch in as well. I’m in my mid-20’s in a stable relationship of over 3 years (at least a part of which was long distance), so I could probably offer some more age-specific advice.

I find that a lot of younger people (ie, people at or below my age) put a lot of undue emphasis on social media. Liking a post, not liking a post, follow, not follow, whatever. These are all contrivances. They are a game designed by social media companies to keep people doomscrolling on their platform. It’s important to see and really understand that it genuinely does not matter what someone does on social media. Your boyfriend seems not to have interacted with the Instagram model after he got with you. So that’s good right? If that’s what’s really important to you, then why does it matter if he still follows her?

And even if we assume that he was still actively interacting with the model, that’s still fine. It’s important to know that there is a difference between attraction and love. Love is the very specific feeling of caring about the other person and wanting the best for them. Many younger people think that attraction and love are the same, and so a lot of drama gets started because neither side realizes that they’re mixing up their ideas of what a relationship should be like. One common issue to be aware of (and most relevant to this situation) is that being attracted to someone else is not love, and it’s not cheating. It is ok to find other people attractive, and likewise, you should not find it offensive if your boyfriend finds someone else attractive.

I will also caution that many younger couples have this expectation that their partners should allow them to go through the other person’s phones. This is extremely toxic. Don’t do that. People have a right to their own private life, even when they are in a relationship. This applies to social media as well. You shouldn’t be looking through your boyfriend’s Instagram just because you want to see if he’s following anyone that you don’t like. Remember that a relationship is built on trust, and that means that you need to trust your boyfriend to be loyal.

You might be thinking that if you shouldn’t look through people’s phones, then it’s really easy for your boyfriend to cheat for a long time without you knowing. And that’s true. That’s why cheating hurts so much. But that possibility doesn’t give you the permission to intrude on their privacy. Have faith in your boyfriend.

Finally, practice open communication and mindfulness. I find that it can be quite difficult to identify what exactly is bothering you, and talking to your boyfriend about a vague sense of jealousy isn’t going to be productive at all. In fact, it’s probably going to get him defensive. When you’re angry, disappointed, upset, jealous, etc., it’s important to take some time to think things through yourself first. These negative feelings tend to result from the feeling that one of your personal rights was violated. If you’re angry or upset, which specific action caused it? Which of your personal rights was violated by that action? It is really important to identify this, since the difference between toxic behavior and valid anger is oftentimes just based on how valid the answers are to those questions. For instance, the “right to your boyfriend’s attention” is not a real right that you have, and so if you were to get angry that your boyfriend isn’t giving you enough attention, that would, in fact, be toxic behavior. And if you do have a right to be angry, then knowing which of your rights was violated makes it easy to prove your point, so there’s no downsides to this approach.

You should be aware that there are many reasons why a guy cannot get hard. Being dehydrated, for instance, makes it really difficult to stay erect. Many guys can get pretty insecure about it, so his reaction sounds about right.

I would recommend that you not blame him for not getting hard. It just happens sometimes and that’s just something that you two will have to work around

Ori is probably going to struggle a bit on a laptop

People say that aiming with bows is easier? What kind of world do they live in?

I’ve shot a decent amount of bows and guns, and guns are far easier to shoot. The difference is that because guns are easier to shoot, there’s a greater expectation of accuracy. Shooting a bow at 30 meters and hitting your target is considered accurate, shooting a gun at 30 meters is considered nothing.

That being said, I still like archery more. There’s just something very personal about the experience of pulling the bowstring and manually making the arrow fly

Even before Trump and Vance lashed out, it was a shitshow. Every time Zelenskyy brought up security, Trump dismissed it because the the minerals were “more important.”

European leaders were certainly watching, and their main takeaway was certainly that Trump can and will sacrifice the security of American allies for money.

Europe and many of the US’s allies had lower military spending and did not to pursue nuclear programs because there was the expectation that the US would help protect these countries. This was exactly the promise that the US gave to Ukraine that got them to give up their nuclear research.

Now that it’s become clear that the US cannot be relied upon for security, many of the US’s allies are certain to start reconsidering their stance on the military and nuclear weapons. As US soft power crumbles, I expect that new, smaller factions will arise to fill the void, and I expect that China will likely try to expand its influence as well.

In most native English accents, R is pronounced by curling the tongue very significantly (more than most languages that I’m familiar with). People who aren’t used to this (often people who speak English as a second language) won’t curl their tongues enough, and the partially curled tongue will end up touching the roof of their mouths. This happens to be how you pronounce L, so in these accents, R and L will end up sounding the same.

Try getting into the habit of curling your tongue more when you pronounce R, and you’ll end up hearing a difference

I tend to like using flatpak, but for Steam, I find that installing it through their website (ie, actually going to their website and downloading the install file) is the best way to get Steam

It’s a slow burn game. There is a plot, and the plot is really good, but it only becomes clear really late into the game. Instead of the plot, the primary driver of gameplay is learning. I see a lot of people approach the game as though the writings are just flavor text, or just a way to portray a clue to a puzzle. It’s really not. You’re supposed to seek out the writing because the writing itself scratches the itch of learning. The developers put an incredible amount of attention to the entire game, and paying close attention and thinking through the implications of the text will reveal the plot points and lore. Basically, you play for the knowledge, and then only later does it become clear that everything that you’ve been doing was actually advancing the plot. And you’d want to remember what you learned so that the plot makes sense

All this to say, there is a wrong way to play the game, and that is to treat the game like nothing more than something to be completed. If you’re feeling a bit lost, yeah, that’s kind of the point. You decide which thread is most interesting to you. All I will say is that any thread that you pull will eventually converge onto the plot, so feel free to pursue another thread if you get stuck or if you get bored of the current thread that you’re pursuing.

Also, remember that in space, there’s no friction, so however long it takes for you to speed up, that’s how long it takes for you to slow down.

If you gave it a genuine shot and it really just doesn’t click with you, then perhaps just watch a Let’s Play. I think it does eventually click with most people, but I acknowledge that some people just don’t like the weight of making truly unguided decisions like the game is expecting you to make

Normal and OK are different things. My personal belief is that there are more bad parents than people think there are. So perhaps what you describe might be normal. But that’s definitely not OK.

It is significantly more acceptable to slow down and stop talking than a lot of people think

Thanks for calling this out. I keep seeing political posts where the intent is clearly not to obtain answers but to obtain agreement. It makes me think that these people are attempting to karma farm.

Back on reddit, wasn’t there a rule that questions had to be genuine? ie, rhetorical posts (like we see now) are not allowed? Perhaps it would make sense to start enforcing such a rule

Yes - there’s a workaround for this. I install games onto NTFS drives all the time. You just need to symlink the Steam compatibility folder on your main drive to the one on the NTFS drive. It’s called the Proton NTFS workaround

There’s a concept in Japanese called chuunibyou, which translates to “8th grade syndrome.” Basically, teenagers (and especially early teenagers) are exceptionally cringe. Frankly, I feel reasonably confident that everyone has at least several memories that keep them up at night from that time in their lives. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

wouldn’t the obvious answer be cancer

Sure, but that’s a bit of a teleological reasoning. Not to mention, there are many ways to avoid cancer without removing stem cells from the vast majority of a species’ life history. Beyond that, people are also concerned about what specific mutations led to mammals’ inability to keep stem cells around, because this knowledge would directly help with our ability to generate stem cells in the lab.

examples

Intestinal and stomach cancers, for instance, have a lot to do with the stem cells in the intestinal/stomach lining. You can also debate whether the progenitor of skin cells counts as a stem cell. In general though, I think this statement is really just a slightly-more-detailed restatement of the general observation that tissues that experience a lot of turnover are more likely to develop into cancer