This is very well put.

Familiarity, I suppose.

Yup! When I announced I’d leave WhatsApp back in the day, even my (old) parents and some (even older) relatives proceeded to download signal just to stay in touch with me.

Sure, I miss some news or announcements that they share in the big WhatsApp groups, but mostly I’m as up to date as everyone.

Most of my friends did the same, but I noticed my age group (and younger) seem more adaptable here and very quickly figured everything out, and we got some groups entirely moved there. I suppose they feel okay having multiple apps for one thing, as opposed to the older gens, who struggle to learn one thing properly and try their best to just stick with it until eternity.

Haven’t missed WhatsApp a bit, it was the least impactful of all of the meta suite (and others) I left behind back in 2017(?) or so.

I remember back in 2017 or so when I left Facebook and did the same, only a handful arranged to keep contact otherwise. Ever since if I’ve met anyone from those years by accident, they’ve been very bitter that I just left them and didn’t stay in contact.

So just kind of a warning here, not everyone will be normal about it. It’s truly weird since I did the same; left a clear announcement I’d leave and hoped those interested would get in touch to figure out another way. Still so many, even after so many years, can feel betrayed and hurt because of that.

No, but we’d eventually meet with them and spend nights and you get to experience it first hand…

We don’t eat red meat at all, so I would probably try it out fairly quickly. Actually we don’t eat chicken or the like either, only fish, which is something I miss a bit more now and then. We have a dried product called NoChicken that is actually pretty good, so that’d probably be sufficient for me to wait a bit to see how it goes long term (I.e is it truly safe to consume).

But every now and then, I miss game. Moose and wood grouse mainly. That’d probably hook me enough to try it quickly.

And to add, if reading just doesn’t seem to work, be open towards audio books. They are every bit as good as the books (unabridged, anyway) but can be a better fit for some.

I have adhd and most of my reading has evolved to be listening. It works well so I can get some stimming while doing boring like dishes or whatever, and this way I actually finish books.

Don’t listen to anyone telling you it’s “not reading”. It is. Whatever works for you.

Just to note, the form has an impact and can cause more negatives than it solves if not done properly.

The amount of people I used to meet through tinder back when I was single that seemingly or self-admittedly did none of that, just brushed once a day, was very concerning. Still is.

Well I hope not. Worth trying it out I think

As someone with ADHD, I’d immediately get myself doing the things I want to be doing. Manipulating/screwing over others? No thanks. The havoc I wreak just in myself is plenty enough

Yeah, and at least in my country, there are mandatory courses common with all technical (not sure how that should be translated properly to English) engineers, such as extensive physics, maths, electricity and such, that us software engineer students also have to pass along with our specialization to even get to the thesis part of the engineering degree.

After all this, I’ll have no trouble calling myself an engineer. Neither does the university I go to. Nor anyone, really.

Without the degree, sure. I’d be ashamed, even, to claim such a title. But that’s just because the whole engineer degree is well established and has a set meaning. I’d be software developer, as I am now, instead of the software engineer I aspire to be.

That is actually a very good question. I think she simply has faith that things will work out for us, irregardless of how we might view the world in this precise moment. I’m not very knowledgeable about religion, so I had to look that term up, and I don’t honestly know. Somehow this has never come up. I can ask her later, but my initial thinking is she probably simply believes in some plan that god has, and that her god is good. She is Evangelical-Lutheran, if that matters; I simply don’t know enough if the different flavors of Christianity view these things in specific, different ways. She doesn’t force any of this on me, which shows, I now realize…

I think the main thing I might have problems conveying is I don’t see it as a binary. Neither is she. It’s not that they either get a religious upbringing or one without religion. There’s plenty of scale between the two ends and I don’t really feel any reason to try and go either way too deeply. Or restrict it to any one religion or philosophy. There can be many religions and different flavors of void of religions. Kids have a lot of questions and it’s fairly fun to describe the world to them, and that is never going to work just from one point of view. The world is vast and filled with many cultures and ways of perceiving the world and humanity, and it’d be a disservice to them if we tried to do black and white there; on or off. I think we can only so our best to give as honest a view of the world we can, with all it’s colors and shades of gray, and hope that some of it gives heureka moments or some illumination at least. It’s never possible to give an objective account or be detailed with all the different aspects and layers and whatnot, since at least me myself; I’m really not that smart honestly. All I can offer is my very best and hope it gives tools to process and understand this world. It probably won’t, as none of it did for me, probably not for anyone, but it’d be worse if we didn’t even attempt and just went with the current norms and limited, culturally claustrophobic takes that’d only serve to unknowingly shoving them down a singular pipeline that’ll only lead to identity problems later down the line.

Right, so I’m not the biological father and as such have to consider the father’s side as well, but we are not really doing anything highly religious and defer education on different religions (and atheism, agnosticism) to the school system, which is neutral and goes education and variety first as a baseline. When they are older, they can find their own path. I suppose they might want to participate in the main religion’s confirmation stuff because most kids do, even if not in the (or any) church, since it’s something of a tradition, but that’s their decision; they’ll be old enough at that point.

We’ve talked about how we’d get married (or something alternative with similar purpose) and how we’d raise our biological kid if or when we have them, and it’s practically the same as how our school-age kid has been brought up. In regards to marriage, despite them being a priest and a theologian with master’s degree, the current idea is to do a secular gathering for the actual social side of things, no priests, no holy word of any variety, but we’ll get a blessing in private with only the very closest ones, no church. I suppose this is what most do anyway. Personally I am not going to participate in any prayers or do any holy vows, but I’ll of course be present there for her and take the blessing together and whatever they’d want in addition, as long as I don’t have to swear to any books or gods. This is hard to put into words without me sounding arrogant or dismissive of the religion, but it’s a compromise that we’ve ended up with. The blessing is important for her, and for me, I just want to dance in the woods and eat well, share the bounty and happiness with friends. So we do both.

With a kid it’d be the same. There’s already plenty of good education coming from our school system, and we’ve of course agreed not to make any decision for the kid before they are of age and capable of making their mind properly. And even then well not force anything on them. But on the other hand if they want to do some before-bed prayers, we’ll of course deliver. It’s something of a habit for the school-aged kid, and I always respectfully participate without binding my fingers or doing the actual amens or the like, but I find it cute and commendable that they wish so much good on everyone and want to make a point to form them into words, speak them out loud, even though I might question the medium.

But it’s all just compromises and honestly, this never seemed like something that’d bring friction. For us, at least. Maybe it’s different to others, but we just try to stay open and available to them, and each other, and avoid forcing anything on them, or each other. I really don’t know how to put it into words, but it just seems natural and comes itself.

Just to add a view from someone living in a progressive-ish country:

Religion and differences of religion have never played a big part in my relations with anyone, nor am I aware it has affected anyone else towards me. There are very few fundamentalists here, so nobody seems to care all that much what you believe or don’t believe.

It’s strange that someone would worry about this. I’m agnostic rather than atheist, but most of my family are very deeply into religion. And my partner is priest by profession. Never has that played a role in our relations, and we do very openly talk about all this occasionally too. They are not trying to convert me, and I’m not trying to convert them. And if nobody wants to convert anyone, there’s very little friction. All it takes is some understanding and empathy, and probably the humility to accept that any of us might be wrong, even one themselves. So nobody’s preaching to anyone, yet we can talk about these things very smoothly and openly if need be, like in regards to children and upbringing etc.

Disagreeing is healthy. Talking is healthy. Getting offended is not. Neither is trying to force anyone into anything, or even worse, unwarrantedly expecting something from someone.

So religion has played exactly zero part in this or anything else at least in my personal relations, or those who I know. I don’t think religion has anything to do with children either. Upbringing can be colorful and include everyone’s opinions and views, and the unique stuff just requires some open conversation and compromises from all parties, which is true for everything in life anyway.

Offline wikipedia, original Finnish “Hobitit” as the movie cut, both seasons of the original Polish “Wiedzmin”, latest versions of the usual rust crates, especially everything bevy related, so that I have plenty to do for years even without internet. Probably some sort of copy of stack overflow too, or sections of it, if possible. Offline version for docs.rs, also offline documentation for lua, react, dotnet etc, that I could foresee maybe needing during those 5 years. Reaper DAW with some of my most trusted plugins. No heavyweight synths or vsti though, have to trust people getting more into actual instruments without internet and me being able to record them. Latest Krita, Blender and Obsidian. The most essential plugins, brushes, scripts etc for those too. Starting to close in on the 100gb I guess, so the rest Id dedicate on extremely compressed (but not horrible) versions of my most listened playlists of music; a few of my favorite movies and/or series; and as big of an archive of ebooks (as in fiction) I could muster in a day. If I have space left, my audiobook library, or at least a segment of it, too. I could live without porn, I suppose, as long as the other areas of entertainment and escapism are covered.

Just wanted to recommend Luanti (formerly Minetest). Got the whole family playing at the same time eventually, and so I spun a server we can always join individually or together. It’s been really fun, didn’t think I’d like the genre, but it’s pretty zen when it needs to be, yet can have action and exploration too. Especially when trying to watch over and guard the little ones that get a little panicky at times and don’t have the best eye-hand coordination with a keyboard and a touchpad.

Anecdotal, and not a woman personally, but I’ve had a similar experience from days long gone; ultimately we ended up trying out different toys and the sucking sort of vibrator with lower settings was what got her past the “block”, but it was via masturbation. We’d only move it to our together time after she got comfortable with the sensation and desensitized, as she described it. In our part of the world the main brand name for this kind of toy was “satisfyer”, not sure if that is global though.

After a while it all just clicked and it became something more familiar to me too, with fingers and tongue (though she did still prefer sucking over licking, which for me as a young man back then was new, but very much a priceless enlightenment and a much appreciated skill I later had time to hone more) ultimately joining in and it all becoming something more familiar to my less experienced younger self.

What I’ve learnt since though, is that everyone is so wildly different, that just simply masturbating together, or learning to, if the other party/parties aren’t experienced there, has been key to lasting mutual satisfaction. And people and their needs/wants change over time, that’s also important to keep in mind. And masturbation is the thing that naturally reflects that. Just talk, talk, talk, and then experiment. Try and keep an open mind, and try to be accommodating. Change and new things take time. Try your best not to get frustrated or load too much expectations into the process. And try and understand the other party/parties are the ones having a harder time coming to terms with the fact that they could not meet your initial expectations. They have a lot of pressure due to this, though it’ll ultimately be mutually beneficial.

Also I’ve noted that it’s so easy to fall prey to thinking that you’re the one giving or somehow “improving” their life here, but this is, in fact, your need that needs to get satisfied. You want her to feel things she does not currently. It’s not a bad thing, this is how life is when you share it with someone, but do not think you are being the giving party here. This is your need, which she either chooses to accommodate and figure out together, or not. And you might best start accepting that this experiment might not lead anywhere, and that you might have to change your expectations accordingly.

Chill, friend. People die naturally and fade from memory, this is how we move on and progress. There are way too many issues at the same level of importance as the nipples in social media, and way too many ought to be terminated if we placed the line there.

In place of termination, I’d love to see education, practical activism and just good old time.

We’ll get there. The weirdos opposing mundane shit like nipples will die and fade naturally, and our efforts spent in education and activism will shift the larger tides such that new ones like them will get fewer and fewer each generation.

And since we are humans, new issues will arise, and we’ll fight them the same. They are, and always have been, doomed to die out with the rest of the ass-backwards ideas, this is what progress is.

And you can’t speed up progress with blood. That is how you slow it down. The ideas will root in the blood and refuse to fade like they should and as they eventually unavoidably will, with the temporal resistance brought up by the rushed show of force.

Let the fuckers fade out and be forgotten, as much as possible, as fast as possible, and help the process by being active. Be loud, be persistent, but be not violent.

Any and all violence has always been, and always will be, resisted eventually by a larger force. If the nipple-opposers (I.e conservatives) choose violence, that’ll only serve to speed up the progress for us, by the way of rising more forceful resistance, and after overcoming the oppression, having the majority to instantly implement changes with popular support.

Oppressors will never be popular in the long run, and the oppressor’s ideas are bound to die with them. Not for good, as we’ve seen with the rise of neo-nazism, but they’ll never again be as popular so as to rise into power without blood, and with blood, they’ll repeat the cycle of ultimately weakening themselves and their ideas out of existence for good. But in the short-term, the polar opposites of the oppressor’s ideas will gain flash popularity and those ideas will get rapidly implemented, thus speeding up the progress.

It’s complex and unintuitive, perhaps, but the history has shown that any and all attempts to speed up any ideological progresses by way of violence or oppression, has ultimately ended in those very ideas being in ruin, and the opposing ideas getting stronger, more persistent in their standing.

Though for a short while, those ideas will be in power, and a lot of bad stuff will happen. Even if the ideas should be good from our point of view. But that is just a temporary state, which will always end in resistance winning, and opposing ideas gaining standing and popularity.

This became a very tangential and random outburst, of which I’m not very proud, but I think it best to leave it up if not for anything else but to show everyone my unfounded idea of self-importance and a rambling, cringeworthy brain. Yikes. I’m fucking ashamed. But this is how I think, I suppose, maybe someone will set me straight.