Met a woman on OKCupid back in like 2014. We seemed to hit it off, so we agreed to a mall date since we were both broke (she was a college student, I was a youngster in the military). We were gonna get food and just kinda walk around and window shop and talk. Gonna try to keep this short, but a lot happened:

1. Had me pick her up from her dorm, went up to the dorm, her roommates were drinking even though everyone was underage, and they’re thanking her for having mom get it for her. She’s super nice about it, but proceeds to complain the entire drive and start getting emotional because she hates that they drink when they’re underage, etc. Yet… She provides it…

2. She doesn’t eat when we get to the mall, and instead spends the whole time I’m eating, talking. No breaks for me to respond, just keeps going.

3. We start walking around the mall, and she starts randomly pinching me. Like, painfully, randomly pinching me in my arms and torso. I’m finally like wtf is with the pinching, and she says that she was doing it because I wasn’t holding her hand while we walked around… We just met, and the vibe is already pretty crap, and how in any way is that a way to communicate…

4. We finally leave and get back to her dorm, I walk her to her door, and I’m invited in by her/the roommates. Fine, I decline drinking because I’m a good sailor, but my date and I exchange some pleasantries with the roommates and then head to her room. It’s basically just a bed, I think maybe she was just super nervous at the mall and being in her own environment she’ll relax.

5. We’re just chatting, and the pinching starts again, and she’s kinda just going for it with no breaks. I’m getting pissed and finally grab her wrists and tell her to stop, and she bit me. On the chest, like, hard, not a romantic playful lil love bite. I’m, again, taken aback and am like, wtf?!?

6. She starts giggling and tells me that that’s how women tell guys that want to make out/get intimate. What?! No, not how that works, at all… Especially not on a first date. But, fine, I tell her she can just ask, figuring she just wants to make out.

7. After a little while making out, the pinching starts again, and apparently this time it’s how women say they want to have sex. I wasn’t so turned off, it just didn’t happen, like, at all.

8. She walked me back to my car, and I drove her back to her buildings door, and she bursts into tears about her roommates and the drinking again, I console her enough for her to feel better and go back to her room. Say goodnight, and she just sits there staring at me. I’m kinda done at this point and just ask what, and I get, “No kiss?” Fine…

9. Get a text while I’m driving home telling me it was one of the best dates of her life, she really hopes we can see each other again soon, she really liked me and was attracted to me, etc. I respectfully declined, and when she wouldn’t just take that as an answer, I sent her a text essay outlining basically all of the above, and I honestly can’t remember if she responded.

Honestly, she wasn’t a bad person, and maybe at different stages in our lives things could’ve gone better… But she had a lot going on and a lot of life to live and learn from, and I wasn’t up for the ride. Hope she’s doing well, if she sees this and recognizes it, and that she stopped using pinching as a means of communication.

Oh, and to illustrate how hard the pinching/bite were, I had dime sized bruises all over my arms and torso the next day, and a bite mark bruise on my chest.

Your argument is the same one cops use to justify “bad apples”: it’s not all of us, it’s only some of us.

Before any religion starts preaching to their neighbors or “sharing the faith,” y’all need to get your own folks in order. You may not demonize LGBTQ+ people, or want to ban abortion, or force others to live under the same tenets as you, but those who wear your cross and share your God do.

So all I can and should do is help to show it’s real by the way I live my life, demonstrating love for all mankind, and hope they get the idea. If that much is problematic, I think we’ve got issues.

I would argue we definitely have issues. You will not change my mind, but religion has done significantly more harm across history, particularly Christianity, than any amount of Christian do-gooding will ever be able to undo. Millions across history have suffered, been enslaved, had their rights taken away, been tortured, and killed at the hands of “Christians,” and that includes the modern day. Christian groups are the ones helping to spread HIV/AIDS across Africa because god forbid anyone use a condom, Christians are the ones pushing for abortion bans, and Christians are the ones trying to pull the US into an authoritarian theocracy.

So if you don’t want to be associated with the ills of Christianity, you may want to reconsider, in my opinion, what benefit God provides to mankind. Because from where I’m sitting, it’s literally zero. The world would be a much better place without religion, and you shouldn’t need the promise of an eternal paradise and eternal salvation to, as you put it, “demonstrating love for all mankind.” If you can’t live that way without “God” telling you, then you’re exactly the problem with Christianity.

Purchased a soft drink from a fast food restaurant. I have a few friends that, in their minds, it is never justified to buy a drink from a fast food place if you’re doing takeout because “you have drinks at home, they charge $3 for something that costs them $0.11 to make, etc.”

It’s become somewhat of a debate amongst our group of friends: I argue they have flavors I may not have at home, it can be a treat, and it helps keep restaurants in business since drinks are where they make their money. I’m told it doesn’t matter, the upcharge is too much to justify.

I’ve boiled my view on it to “There is a fine line between frugal and cheap.” But never thought the purchase of a soft drink would be so polarizing amongst people in my life, hahaha.

There’s also an ongoing moratorium on the board game Life simply because we cannot agree if it’s legal for one player to take out all of the bank’s loans on their first turn. It’s not explicitly stated in the rules you can’t, but many of us feel it defeats the spirit of the game.

Fun fact: The Navy uses the affirmative “aye” or “aye aye” as opposed to “roger” like the Army/Air Force/etc because of similar slang origins. Basically, sailors used to use the word “roger” to mean “fuck,” both as an insult and as a way to identify women they had been with while in port.

“Yeah, I rogered her last night at the tavern,” kind of thing. But as sailors began to respond to officers using “Roger that (fuck that),” the Navy came down and made “aye aye” the official affirmative response for their personnel.

And even then, “aye” is simply a “I understand” whereas “aye aye,” means “I understand and will carry out X.”

The US Navy also launched an investigative unit during the 1800s (I wanna say the 1880s?) to find homosexual sailors and kick them out of the Navy. The unit only lasted a couple of years before being shut down, as the only people volunteering for the unit were homosexual sailors. 😆

True, no animal consents to being eaten, and I understand veganism is meant to eliminate or mitigate unnecessary animal products from one’s diet, but I don’t think “no animal consents to being eaten” works here. That’s nature (and yes, I’m ignoring that humans are part of nature, despite our best efforts to think we aren’t), you can’t change nature. You’re not going to get a lion or a shark to stop being a carnivorous predator because that’s just what they are.

I also don’t necessarily agree with your knife argument: a serial killer does not need to kill to survive, whereas living things need to eat to survive. I don’t think the consent argument is as ridiculous as that, I would more equate it to an infirm cancer patient being given chemotherapy drugs versus homeopathy treatment. They can’t consent to either, but one is clearly meant to try to fix the issue, whereas the other is a personal choice.

Veganism is a personal choice, cats needing meat in their diet is not. I have nothing against veganism, and I appreciate your arguments (I hadn’t considered the “not consenting to be eaten” aspect). Idk, to me, people who force their diets/lifestyles onto their pets that aren’t equipped for it, it’s just… Immoral? I’m blanking on the word, it’s been a long week.

What I don’t understand about all of this is the consent aspect: your cat/dog/pet did not consent to a vegan diet, so why are you forcing it on them? Obviously you can’t ask your pet what they want for dinner, but left to their own devices, I doubt any of them would choose a vegan diet, so… Why force it on them?

Even ignoring all of the science and everything, morally/ethically, it just feels messed up to me. It’d be like forcing your child to eat food they’re allergic to because it’s healthier/more ethical, despite it causing health issues for them.

Absolutely wild

I’m gonna throw “forecastle” out there. It’s referring to a specific part/area of a ship, but it’s pronounced similar to “folks-sole.”

They have churros on my local subway menu, as well as a pizza, and a footlong pretzel stick.

We’re in New England…

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

Richard Cranium

Edit: someone beat me to it 😆

So then explain to me why it was ok for God to order his followers to destroy the Tower of Babel and slaughter those building it? I believe God’s logic was, “If they complete this tower, it’ll show the world they don’t need me, and we can’t have that.”

How exactly was that ethical? Or should we discuss being allowed to beat your slave, so long as they don’t die within three days, you haven’t commited murder because they are your property? Is that the ethics and morality you’re speaking of?

Or maybe it’s the “an eye for an eye” part, where revenge is completely justified? I believe it took a Hindu nationalist to add “makes the world blind” to actually make that statement ethical.

Or maybe you’re trying to discuss one of the many, many instances of rape that occurs in the bible, but it’s completely justified and ethical because God said so?

Personally, if you base your morals and ethics off of the Bible, you’re a piece of shit who justifies their immoral behavior using an outdated text as some kind of shield because you think, so long as you repent riiiiiiiiight before you eat the big one, you’re good. 🙄

They wouldn’t have had their lives upended if we weren’t doing everything in our power to prolong the war!

They wouldn’t have had their lives upended if Russia didn’t illegitimately invade their homeland. Twice, in the last decade, I believe. I also don’t know wtf you mean when you say prolong the war, if Ukraine stopped fighting now you don’t think Russia wouldn’t just go at it again?

So you understand making the world a worse place isn’t the gotcha you seem to think it is right?

So you understand that this discussion is about OPC and their view on Ukraine and the Russian invasion? I told you I served to answerbyour initial question as to why I don’t go fight in Ukraine: I’ve already done my time in the service, was the implication you seemed to miss.

Trying another subject change isn’t the gotcha you think it is, kid.

The one who suspended elections after he got elected on a platform of peace and failed to end the civil war?

The one who’s following Ukrainian law and listening to the general vibe of the country and the situation with the war?

Or the Zelensky who is open to the idea of having elections, but does not think it’s a good idea based on both the law and I assume logistical decisions, like having mass groups if people located in small areas for extended periods of time during, say, a war.

Not being literate on the world stage isn’t the gotcha you think it is, bud.

How many Ukrainians living in Ukraine do you know? I’m certain it’s less than the actual Ukrainian right here telling you what the situation is.

None, as does the very obvious Russian bot who’s, like I said before, just propagating the same Russian State Media talking points that you’ve somehow fallen for. Sad, really.

You really don’t give a shit about actual Ukrainians beyond their willingness to bleed for the profits of the military industrial complex.

Mm, no, I do give a shit about a sovereign nation defending themselves from a foreign aggressor, and reclaiming any illegally held territory going back to, idk, 2013-ish. 🤷‍♀️ If it was so important to the military industrial complex, why did the GOP actively fight to stop it? That’s taken money out of the wealthy’s purse, can’t have that.

You also never answered why you’re defending a Russian troll, so let’s try again in a language you may understand:

Почему вы защищаете русского тролля?

Do you think we’d be sending them weapons (and buying up their assets for pennies) if this battle wasn’t yours?

Welcome to the world under capitalism, guess we should just do nothing then, fuck all the actual people that live in Ukraine and have had their lives upended or destroyed because of the war.

Seriously? Fuck off with that bullshit.

They’ve also supported Israel. By that logic, you, personally are assisting them in genocide.

Yep, and I’m fucking pissed about it. This discussion also isn’t about Israel, so don’t change the subject.

I will serve crack before I serve this country. Look at every military action in this country’s history since WWII. In none of them were we the good guys.

Edgy, wow, impressed. Never said we were, just said I’ve served, so don’t put words in my mouth.

Oh fuck off. He knows more about the situation than you do. He is right there experiencing it.

By his own admission, he left Ukraine before the invasion, so no, he isn’t there experiencing it. He’s safely in another country, acting like he understands what’s going on in a country he currently doesn’t live in. And then acts like he speaks on behalf of Ukraine when they democratically elected their leader, continue to fight against their unjustified invaders, despite apparently living in a prison-state worse than Russia.

While also claiming Russia is not actively engaged in the very same activities he is accusing Ukraine of.

So go fuck yourself, I don’t know why you’re defending some Russian troll.

1. It’s not my battle, my country wasn’t invaded. His was, but he had already left, and refuses to go back and help, but defends the people invading his country. That’s pathetic and cowardly, and spoken by someone in a position of privilege from foreign soil (again, he left before the invasion) but claims to speak for his countrymen and women actually living through the atrocities and attacks.

2. My country is supplying military aid to Ukraine via my tax dollars, so while I’m not directly fighting, my country and myself are assisting them in their effort to defend themselves against an unjustified invasion.

3. I am a veteran of my country’s armed services, can you say the same?

4. I also never told him to go fight, but it seems pathetic and cowardly to sit behind a computer screen in another country, claim to speak on behalf of your home nation while propagating Russian-media talking points. So I stand by what I’ve said.

Or has a pet. I could see a cat doing that over time, and my recliner in my living room has a similar tear because it’s basically my dog’s chair/bed, and he does that digging-to-make-the-ground-comfortable thing before he lays down.

At least I’m not selling out my supposed homeland to their invaders.

Pathetic coward.

If I were in Ukraine, I’d be wishing for opportunity to go to Russia, because it’s one of the few ways to escape it… Thankfully I’ve left before the war started, so I don’t need to.

So again, pathetic and a coward, assuming you’re from Ukraine at all, Comrade. 🙄

Supposedly?? What the hell do you mean by that? https://theconversation.com/why-banning-men-from-leaving-ukraine-violates-their-human-rights-178411

Huh, a country being invaded needs men to fight, who would’ve fucking thought. So what’s your solution? End the war and let Russia have their way? Makes sense, it doesn’t affect you in the slightest as a coward who fled his homeland and now comes online to trash it and defend the invaders.

Pathetic coward.

Well, exactly so that you have a chance to see it, and stop thinking of yourself as a good guy who is helping Ukrainians while in reality you are helping to murder us.

Right, so if the West stopped supplying arms to Ukraine to defend themselves against an unlawful aggressor, Russia will immediately stop the invasion?

Tell me, is that why Ukraine’s military chooses to bomb and seek out strategic resources for their attacks, while Russia bombs apartment buildings and city centers? Yep, must be that pesky western influence that wants to check notes stop the authoritarian creep of Russia as they attempt to reclaim their Soviet satellite states.

You’re right, the West is to blame for Russia invading another country, raping, and slaughtering its people. I’m sure the people being killed and injured in Russia’s bombing attacks really wish the Russians would just take over already and turn them into second-class citizens, at fucking best.

Pathetic coward.

Well, I never claimed that Russia is the good guy here, but they are not doing exactly the same.

No, you are, because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be defending Russia at all in any of this, because they are 100% in the wrong, from start to finish. And yes, they are doing exactly the same thing. Russia has pulled people out of their prisons and sent them to the front lines, so do they not count as people to you, because they’re prisoners?

Russia has also been sending captured Ukrainian troops to the front lines, along with kidnapping their own men off the streets and sending them into battle with few supplies, if any. Like, are you fucking dense, man? Eyes wide shut kind of thing?

Pathetic coward.

Zelensky’s regime decided to turn country into a mass-prison and kidnap people and send them to die. It is not “country choosing to defend itself”.

Zelensky was elected by the Ukrainian people, it’s not a fucking regime. And he went to war with the backing of his people. I’m sorry Ukraine was the first target Russia had in their quest to reclaim the glory that was the Soviet Union 🙄 But they are, and they could have chosen to bend the knee to Russia, or rightfully, defend themselves.

They, the people of Ukraine, chose to defend themselves, so fuck right off with this “Zelensky evil dictator” bullshit. He’s not, he’s just fucking not. If the people of Ukraine didn’t want to defend their homeland, the troops would just surrender instead of fighting back, and they’re fucking not.

So fuck right off, you pathetic coward, and I feel sorry for whatever country your cowardly ass ended up in. Hope they’re never invaded, we’ll all know the first person will be that starts sucking his invaders cocks down to the balls.

Then go to Russia, I’m sure they’d be more than willing to send you to the front to kill your fellow Ukrainian brothers and sisters, and it’ll get you out of the “prison” that is supposedly Ukraine. 🙄

Wtf is the point of your comment chain? I’ve seen and heard no claims that Ukraine is kidnapping people off the street to be sent to the front, outside of Russian owned state media. The same media that hides and covers up the fact that Russia is doing exactly what you’re describing to its own citizens.

Ukraine was invaded, and the country chose to defend itself as opposed to roll over and take Putin’s boot on their throat. The invasion was begun under a completely fabricated claim about historical Russian boundaries. Zelensky and Ukraine have, to me, been nothing but up front about their motives, their rationale, and pride they have for their country.

I’m sure they’d be ashamed to know you think so little of your brother and sister Ukrainians, but then again, it sure sounds like you’d rather have a Russian boot on your neck than a Ukrainian uniform on your shoulders. Cowardly, and pathetic. I wouldn’t spit in your direction, it’d be an insult to the spit.

“High thoughts,” almost like shower thoughts, but driven by weed and, in my experience, learning an interesting fact or tidbit.

So they’re not a scientist and don’t have formal training in sounds or plants or animals, they learned a fact and got high and connected some dots, haha

Let’s say you’re in school, and you’re assigned a lab partner and told the requirements of your project and that you need to compromise both individual’s ideas to make it happen.

Every time you try to make a suggestion, they immediately say no and suggest something that isn’t even graded for the project, and refuses to budge until you compromise. When you don’t compromise, they threaten to tell the teacher that you’re not compromising. As you try to hold your ground trying to get a good grade for both of you, they just keep doing whatever they want and making more threats to you: they’ll take your lunch money, they’ll beat you up after school, they’ll pop your bike tires, etc.

When you tell the teacher, they tell you to stop overreacting and you need to learn to work with others. After school, your science partner punches you and says you better agree to XYZ tomorrow. You tell the teacher they hit you, and you’re told you need to stop exaggerating and learn to compromise and work together. Every day that week, your science partner makes good on each threat after school, and every day you tell your teacher, they tell you to stop exaggerating and learn to play nice.

On the last day, you punch the kid back, really hit him, break his nose kind of punch. And you’re punished: the teacher says you shouldn’t have resorted to violence, your partner says they were the true victim in the project arrangement, you get a failing grade because everything you compromised on didn’t meet the requirements, but your science partner still got an A and wasn’t punished for anything he did all week because “the rules don’t apply to them the same way, they’re troubled/have a lot going on at home/whatever excuse.”

That’s the current state of US politics: Republicans are justified in any and everything they do because they’re “special,” but Democrats have to follow all of the rules, all of the time, even when the other side of the aisle refuses to even listen to them or the centuries/decades of legal precedent. And they, the Republicans, still win because that’s just how the fucking system works.