Join a club, try to find others that are like-minded. I’ve got friends who are recent parents and it made me have a look at my social circle and figured it was time to expand my social circle.

Lots of people are feeling lonely simply because they don’t know where to meet any new people. I’d say see if your place of residence has some sort of meeting center where you could organise something. If only one person shows up it might be a success already.

A friend of mine is building something like that but it’s still very early days, also I think it’s limited to eToro I think. Usually APIs are available so maybe there’s a possibility to whip something up yourself

Removed by mod

At some point all the fun stuff from a new relationship dies down and most of it just turns into a drag. The deepest conversations you’ll have are about what to eat or whether you’ll be home at a regular time.

I know this is not the case in all marriages but most of them that end in divorce are merely because it started as something fun, marriage seemed the next logical step and then you’re sort of locked into it, longing back to the excitement of getting to know each other. Being single is pretty much like that unless you never meet new people you have a fun couple of weeks with before never seeing each other again.

Cause I got married. It’s not that different from being single.

Why have users waste time playing games when they can waste time watching ads instead

There was this guy who started college when I was chairman of the study association for IT. He was a bit of a geek even by IT standards, but all in all okay guy who brought a lot of enthusiasm.

He was never really understood by his surroundings, had a tough childhood with some trauma. Went into special needs schools and working his way up to study IT at a good school. He was like 26 when he started, the more usual age being 18 or even 17.

He was of course always welcome at our study association and everyone accepted him for who he was. He ended up also doing board work for the study association.

Couple years later, I’d already graduated, we met at a general meeting for the association and afterwards he took me apart to say that he’d graduated. He said that it was because of me giving a speech to all first-years that he’d felt more or less at home, felt confident enough to join the association, found friends and that that helped him get his diploma. He said it was because of me he got where he was.

I told him it was not because of me. He got to college before even meeting me. I was just there along the way to nudge him, unknowingly, towards a group of positive people who were always happy to help.

He’d had tears in his eyes and I have him a quick hug. I then told him this study association did a lot of good for me too. Sometimes all you need to do is step into something to generate great change in your life.

Netherlands, all of us also. Two of them solo, one of which bought it like 3 years ago. Me and my wife bought ours in 23, we’re in the market currently.

All of us have hbo level jobs, one of us used to be entrepreneur. Sold his company. The guys all work in IT.

College. I was doing some student council stuff, not a lot of studying. The fun years were pretty much up by then anyway.

I’m not your target demographic but it’s not really a stretch to say that pretty much everything that’s happening today has happened before and will keep happening. Like others say it’s mostly because there is more coverage (and maybe some more nuance causing more opinions). Back in the 50s the US started fighting in Korea and pretty much the entire US could see why and supported it. Then when Vietnam happened, there was a bit more coverage which also caused more dissent. Since then I think petty much every 5 years or so the US has been fighting wars in the Middle East. The fight with Iran is nothing new (look up Iran-Contra for instance).

Environmental concern has been around for well over 60 years and yes, we are a lot further along but by now the smart money is on people will never be able to steer it in a positive direction so it’s pretty much damage limitation where possible.

In the end it’s not really about how fucked up global events are, it’s more about finding the light in when they all seem a bit less fucked up than it used to be.

I use Portainer.

I’d say that second one is nearing a sunk cost fallacy making it akin to cognitive dissonance. That’s the term usually described in addiction and certain splurge purchases, meaning that your brain will try to reason around anything against a certain idea.

Example: I shouldn’t have another drink because I still need to drive and I have got a pretty busy day tomorrow. Then again, I could always take the bus home and call in sick tomorrow. I deserve another drink because I worked hard today.

I was more or less forced to contribute at home. It was not just cooking, but the whole process of dinner. It started with me having to set the table, clear the table, do the dishes and when we got a dishwasher, load it. Then I also had to peel potatoes, cut vegetables. The older I got, the more responsibilities I got. At some point I had a dedicated day in the week where nobody would be able to cook for me and others would eat later than I would. These days were initially just me and my dad, so my dad showed me literally once how he made pasta bolognese. The next week, it was my turn. I was given feedback on my cooking and the next week I could try again. I kinda liked doing it so in due time, I also had to cook on another weekday. My mom would show me how she handled certain things and after a while, but the time I was 16, I could make a couple of dishes and did so at least twice a week. My sister was gearing up to be a professional athlete (sadly she never made it that far) so she rarely cooked but once she stopped her sport, she would also cook twice a week.

This is less the story of how I learned to cook and more the story of how my parents trained their servants to cook for them.

Don’t forget bots

Can recommend Color Out Of Space if you’re the type that appreciates a bit of Nick Cage. It’s Lovecraftian horror but somehow also has Tommy Chong in its cast.

And why not make it a more Cage-y by with Renfield and Longlegs? Throw in some Willy’s Wonderland and you’ll be golden.

I never ‘dated’ in the traditional sense of the word. When I started college, I was about 19 and met someone when I went on a trip with my study association and was in a relationship with her for 8 months. It was sort of love at first sight.

After that I would meet people through my study association which was all fine but never really turned up anything serious.

The day I met my wife, I just got out of the relationship I mentioned before. It still took well over a year for us to start anything romantic. We were just okay friends, although at some point she started hanging out at my house more and more so that also kind of just happened.

I don’t regret not having to go through all the dating things. It might have been nice to meet some more new people, but I’ve always lacked confidence in these situations so I’m not sure I’d be at all comfortable with it either. If there is no click right away, might as well call it a day and stop wasting time.

I have three cats that would beg to differ as well. Also I’ve seen dogs fighting

Nice! Too bad it’s not next season

Yes, there’s room for discussion, so there’s no blind support for Israel. I’m not saying there is no support for Israel. Western Europe is walking the line between appeasement politics and reality. They all know that condemning Israel would create tensions with the US.

But if you look at citizens, pro-Palestine (so not necessarily pro-Hamas) protests are centered around ending human suffering, without actually taking a side in who has a claim to the land there.

The Netherlands is not participating in the Eurovision Song Festival, which might seem like inconsequential, but it’s a pretty big statement. Winners of the contest are returning the awards now that Israel is not banned from participating.

Plus the ICJ is located in the Hague, which isn’t recognized by the USA, but also show some moderate doubts towards what Israel is doing.

The entire situation in Israel is complicated with its roots going far beyond the temporal conscience of people. There’s no clear answer other than that nothing warrants bombing hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid.

The USA never really had allies after WWII. They did a lot to stop Germany from taking over the continent, but after that the USA was basically a playground bully, an enforcer, that believes it’s the boss and as long as everyone does what they want, they can be friends.

Now that they start doing things that don’t align with what the ideals of the European Union or Europe in general, suddenly we start seeing that ‘allies’ is a very relative term.

The USA just wants to be number 1. Now that they have started destroying their own economy, suddenly the EU, Canada, China, all of them seem like threats.

Basically the USA is just a market to Europe, and they provide the media we watch in the shape of TV shows and the like. They provide the arms we need to ‘keep peace’ where necessary. If shit is going to hit the fan (more than it did in Ukraine, maybe also tensions in Gaza since Europe doesn’t blindly support Israel), it’s not a given that the USA and Europe will be on the same side, but my point is it was never really a given.