meeting people
✶ if you want to go for a run, go for a run, don’t look for company. sooner or later, on your fifth run or your twentieth, like-minded people will find you themselves.
✶ “working in public” gets a lot of people jobs, and living in public gets a lot of people into relationships. your job is to think hard about how to make that possible, and if you want to be social on social media, do that more than you do other things
compliments
✶ I’ve had a lot of people try to give me observant compliments but a lot of the time they’re completely inaccurate and make me feel unseen yet self conscious. Like “I could tell you’re a really (trait I absolutely do not have) kind of person”. Or “I could tell you’re secretly very (quality that does not describe me)”. And then I don’t know what to say
✶ compliments from men are great but updating your opinion of yourself based on them is missing the point. compliments from men are good insofar as they show a) his desire to compliment you b) his wit c) that he gets what you want to be complimented for. shouldnt impact self image
dreading being approached
✶ hard to overstate how much i used to dread being approached by men, not bc of a sense of offended modesty but bc i was so unsure how to read ppl & what to say & i felt like it was really unfair of them to look at me like i was boring & odd when they approached me
- there was a period of years where any man could have gotten it in by listening to my infodumping & politely saying it sounded interesting…only one chose to do so & we’re still dating…the others tried all kinds of other stuff & succeeded only in hurting my feelings
standards
✶ i think you can both hold people to high standards and root for them. you don’t have to choose between saying that any conduct goes and nothing merits criticism or mocking people who fail to do the right thing. there’s space for ‘yeah, it’s tough. you’re tough. step up to it.’
- a lot of people only want standards so they can condemn people who aren’t living up to them, and a lot of other people want no standards whatsoever so that they never have to do the right thing unless it is also maximally convenient.
✶ the correct use of the “can detect bullshit” skill is not “put up with a lot of bullshit” it’s “get the fuck out when you sense bullshit” goddammit
communicating relationship goals
✶ “i want marriage and kids” doesnt mean anything if you dont finish the sentence with “in x years” and we should stop pretending that it does
- “i’m not interested in moving in together without a ring & a wedding date” & genuinely meaning it because it feels like a waste of your time to do that, not to manipulate the other person into anything, just setting a boundary & happily living your life.
- what i’m trying to say is the relationship equivalent of letting your boss know you have your eye on other opportunities/limited loyalty without a raise forthcoming versus saying either i get a raise right now or i quit.