More and more of that cheap tacky plastic crap littering front lawns.

The inflatable decorations are my pet-hate. If you don’t keep them running 24/7, they look like a bunch of garbage strewn across the lawn.

As one of those neurodivergent kids, my mom explicitly laid all the blame on me whenever she felt embarrassed in public. I was removed from activities countless times without any clear understanding of why - all I knew was I wasn’t allowed to do fun things. There was no accommodation for sensory issues, no space provided for me to self-regulate, no understanding that I was having a difficult time and needed support - just labels thrown at me for “being difficult”, as if by merely existing, I was a problem.

Every child deserves to participate in enriching activities regardless of their neurotype. By removing neurodiverse kids (and not returning after they calm down) or outright keeping them away from such events, they may internalize the idea that who they are is not acceptable. Parents, there are resources available today that didn’t exist in the 90s. There is no reason to raise your neurodiverse kid the way we used to be raised. If you don’t know what to do with your kid and you haven’t already done so, get help. Please.

Indeed, I was never a “typical teen.” I always felt older than I was, and I’ve never fit in well with those my age. I came to most of my current religious and political philosophies in middle school, after I realized the beliefs I was raised in didn’t make sense and I plunged into self-discovery and research.

One of my mottos since that time is “question everything” (which lines up with the decision to pick this username.) Over the years, I’ve met people at various stages of that journey, including some who may never even begin it. I’ve learned, I’ve grown, and yet I’ve found that a lot of the conclusions I came to on topics long ago have only strengthened with more information. I saw fascism in my school admin, and 20+ year later, I know for sure that it was all part of the same big picture we see today. I saw corruption, I saw manipulation, I saw reasons not to trust anyone who expected blind authority. I was told I was “overreacting” by people who couldn’t see what I saw, and it’s hard to reconcile the normally-positive “having been right” with the negative of, well, gestures around.

I am not the same person I was as a teen, even if those core beliefs remain. For example, I’ve come to embrace polyamory, to understand and accept those with drug abuse issues, and have learned a lot about social situations (I may have been quick on figuring out a lot of things, but my social skills perpetually lag behind. Yay autism.)

The key thing that helped across the board was when I decided to refrain from taking sides on any major issues until after I’ve researched it thoroughly. Too many people react impulsively to new ideas, often against them, only to later on embrace them. I saw it in many of the adults that were around me, adults who heard a biased headline and drew wild assumptions based on it. But when the thing ended up actually being beneficial, they never acknowledged their past stance - they just quietly ignored it and acted like being pro-whatever is how they’d been all along. I told myself I never wanted to become such a hypocrite, and the best way I’ve found to avoid it is to take in information and consider all sides of it prior to forming and expressing an opinion on it.

I know that’s not “normal,” though I do wish it was. But yeah, I can understand how “having the same beliefs as teenage-me did” is more likely to be a sign of stagnation. However, self-reflection is practically a daily task in my life. If some of my beliefs haven’t changed since my teenage years, it’s because they’re still solid today.

Indeed. I didn’t intend to deny that. The phrase just got me thinking, and I realized that “normal health” is hard to even imagine. It would require so many things to be different. The chronic stress alone must be destroying us.

I’m from the US. I live in a country with health care too expensive to stay on top of. Where it’s normal to skip routine check-ups because they would cost too much (if you can even get a day off work in the first place.) Our jobs either do not offer vacation time, or limit any time off to something like 2 weeks or less per year. Most areas are unwalkable, while in others, any adult who rides a bike is assumed to have had a DUI (that is, people assume they lost their driving privileges. Why else no car?) Nothing about my environment is healthy.

Ergo,

I have no idea what “normal health” means.

If they’d said ““All” 90s kids were born in the 80s,” yeah, that would be gate-keepy. However, they used “mostly,” which leaves room for outliers. If you remember the 90s, you can still fit the bill.

Which means like it or not, you’re one of us. 🙃

I just want to say, this is the first time I’ve seen/heard the 2030s referred to as simply “the 30s” in a casual sentence. It still feels weird. But eh, that’s life. I still remember “2002” feeling like a far-off future.

I realized recently that teenage-me was right about a lot of things I believed about the future, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it.

It’s like my anxiety is doing a victory dance on my hope’s grave.

At first, the censorship in that article annoyed me. But after thinking about it, it’s hilarious that people can write and publish an article entirely about somebody’s penis, yet they still see the need to censor words like “dick” and “sexual.” As if somebody who chooses to read about someone’s penis is going to be offended by such words, or the article writer has to pRoTeCt tHe cHiLdReN somehow (???)

I just can’t get over how stupid our modern dystopia is.

Is a 20 year old not allowed to make decisions on who they are sexually or romantically attracted to?

To be fair, is that a decision anyone can make? That is, we can’t usually control whether or not we’re attracted to someone.

But to your point, yeah, what consenting adults do should be nobody else’s business. We can acknowledge that we wouldn’t personally want such a relationship for ourselves without taking away others’ autonomy.

As to OP, it sounds like they personally didn’t want the relationship, in which case it doesn’t matter how bad the 18 year old wanted it. Nobody’s obligated to take part in a romantic/sexual relationship they don’t want to have, no matter how desperate the other party is for it.

Username checks out

Some woman shop for/wear “men’s” clothes, either because they shop for the men in their life, or for themselves because the standards are more sensible (even if not perfect) compared to women’s sizing. In other situations, we wear “men’s” cut clothes because it’s the default - like when a workplace gives everyone a free T-shirt. 9 times out of 10, it’s probably a cut designed for men - even if the workplace has a majority of women (as was the case when I worked in a nursing home.)

At least for pants, a lot of men’s pants sizes usually go off a band + length measurement, which is a ratio that women’s clothes don’t offer at all. T-shirts can be bad either way, but I once grabbed two (“women’s”) shirts off the same rack in a store and both fit me perfectly - one was Small, the other was Extra Large. I’ve never seen that bad of a difference when trying on “men’s” clothes, and that’s part of why I prefer to buy from the men’s section. It’s more sensible.

So yeah, vanity sizing hurts everyone. But unless you do shop for both men’s and women’s clothes, it’s hard to appreciate just how awful vanity sizing is for women in particular.

Lemmy needs a community for A Bra That Fits. It’s hard to express just how bad the bra-sizing problem is in the US. It goes far and beyond vanity sizing. I don’t even bother with US sizes anymore. Not only do the sizes mean next-to-nothing, but most stores only carry up to about ~ 44 DDD. Which means that many people who require different sizes end up wearing what’s available - even if it doesn’t fit right. When I measure myself and plug it into a bra sizing calculator, I end up with something even specialty lingerie shops don’t carry. But that’s not a problem for Victoria’s Secret or whatever - they’ll attempt to push whatever they have in stock, even if its sizing makes no sense, because their end goal is to make a sale - not to actually help you.

I suspect the powers of capitalism (aided by the internet/shopping online) have convinced most stores not to carry sizes that aren’t mainstream. Yes, this even applies to boutique shops that supposedly cater to larger sizes. They don’t want to keep stock that isn’t likely to move, which means tons of people like me end up getting completely shafted. I could spend hours researching places, making calls, traveling across the state to find these places, find the one or two bras in the entire building that actually fit me, just to end up with a material that makes me itch or has an ugly style that only a grandma would wear. (Sexy lingerie? For massive titties? LOL good luck finding that.) I’ve wasted days doing this, and it’s only gotten worse since Covid (when many stores moved inventory out of physical buildings and made them exclusively available online. Which defeats the point of actually going to their stores at all.) My only real option is to bra shop online, using British sizes, and fucking pray that everything will work out all right.

On top of that, bras are expensive. Prices vary with sales and all, but I’d say about $50 is average for one. Add in the scarcity aspect and the varying quality levels (that I can’t afford to be picky about), and I’m lucky to own 2-3 bras that fit at any given time. I have to hand-wash and thoroughly dry my bra most nights so I can wear it again the next day without risking a yeast infection. It absolutely sucks and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

I recently downloaded a mod for a game from a custom content creator who hosted their own webpage. I experienced issues, so I went to see if there was a support page of common issues. Instead, their “support” was a link to their Discord server.

Which means instead of an FAQ page, or an email account that they could respond to in their own time, this person preferred to moderate a live chatroom where people ask the same questions over and over again? On the one hand, as a user of their cc, it’s reassuring to have someone who worked on the content there to live-answer any questions. I got my problem solved quickly, so the user experience is definitely positive. On the other hand, I would’ve thought keeping up essentially a “customer support” Discord to be far more tedious and frustrating than maintaining other common alternatives.

I just can’t imagine having the time and energy to stay on top of a Discord where everyone is upset and you have to repeat yourself constantly. It sounds like a living Hell.

Interesting. I’ve spent more time in Ontario than any other province, and Newfoundland seems to be the area they all make fun of.

I’d been scrolling through the comments, contemplating sharing my own “dish soap” story, when your comment and the one above both inspired different anecdotes. So although I’m responding to you, I’m just going to go ahead and tie all these topics into one post:

My hair is like yours. I’m a woman (though I don’t feel right saying “cis,” since I don’t really “get” gender) and have very fine hair on a very oily scalp. Like you, I cannot go a day without washing my hair, lest I encounter issues. 24 hours without a wash is obvious, by sight, by touch, and possibly by smell (if you were to get close.) I wish people would stop spreading that no-wash “advice” as if it’ll 100% work for everyone of every hair/skin type. For some of us, it can actually make problems worse.

I also had a time where I was losing my hair (unrelated to hygiene.) It turned out to be a hormone thing - but not in the way the above commenter hypothesized it would. My estrogen levels were low, which meant my testosterone levels were relatively high. Rather than fortifying my hair, testosterone was making my hair thinner, and the result resembled male pattern balding. Thank fuck, going on an estrogen pill managed to correct and even reverse most of the damage. (Though now I fear the US government trying to take away my birth control, which is actually “magical hair maintenance pills” in my mind. But that’s another topic for another day.) Either way, hormones absolutely play a role in hair. Pregnancy and its cocktail of hormones is well-known to cause changes in hair thickness, texture, and even color. However, there are too many variables to precisely pin any one particular effect to any one particular hormone across every single person. For me, estrogen vastly improved my hair. Others’ results may vary.

As to dish soap, I was around 11-13, middle school age. A (female) friend had said she used dish soap instead of shampoo. I was curious and decided to try it. It worked to wash my hair all right, but my hair didn’t feel the same afterwards. It’s hard to recall by now exactly what was different, but there was something about the resulting texture that was off. I’ve tried a number of different types of shampoo throughout my life, but every single one of them provided a certain result that dish soap couldn’t provide. So although it might suffice for some people, I’ll have to add “dish soap as shampoo” to the “things that personally don’t work for me” box.

Yeah, autism does tend to create communication skill issues that can’t easily be changed by things others do. Good observation!

Being a cat would be nice, but I’d be happy just to have half their self-advocacy skills.

Me: “Um, hey, I am sorry to bother you, but could you scootch your chair a teeny bit? I need to get to the table behind you. Okay, a bit more. Just a smiiiidge more.” Holds breath and squeezes by. “Okay, thank you! Sorry again for bothering you.”

Meanwhile,

Cat: Pounces onto pillow at 5am “Wake up, bitch. It’s time for my breakfast. Now I’m going to meow repeatedly into your face until you comply with my demands.”

OP’s first mistake was thinking they could find a picture of typical female bullying. Boy bullies may use their physical force, but most girl bullies use psychological force. They use words to tear into you, they manipulate people with lies about you, they create drama that drives friendships apart and socially isolates their target. There are no physical bruises to show for it, all the planning takes place inside their heads, and the closest thing to “evidence” is boiled down to “she said/she said.” If she’s got more friends to back up her lies (and she does, because she socially isolated you) she could easily turn the tables and accuse you of starting shit with her. And she will be believed. Because she’s done it before - character assassination is her specialty, and she’s targeted you enough that school admin prejudicially expects you to lie.

Anyway, you’re probably not going to find a picture of that. Even if you do, you likely won’t recognize it as “bullying” because it’ll just look like girls talking.

Policy depends on location, but for some places offering your receipt is 100% voluntary. I wouldn’t deny showing my receipt at Costco (where it’s been standard practice long before self-checkout came around and, though I don’t have a copy of the agreement handy, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were part of the agreement when you sign up for a club card.) But when I worked at a certain home improvement store, they hired outside security to check receipts. When one of the security guards was ignored by a customer and they asked him again, the customer complained. Subsequently, the security guard got fired. That’s how I learned that the policy is “ask once, and let them go if they don’t respond the first time.” AKA security theater.