I’m a bi woman and have always preferred women. But I ended up falling in love with a wonderful man who is now my husband. I’m currently really grateful for that. Loving a woman in this climate would be so stressful. I’m very scared for my trans best friend though.

There’s a mobile phone repair shop next to where we live. Everything in the window is faded from the sun. In 6 years of living here I have not seen it open or someone inside even once.

I was a project manager for a pretty large project last year at my job. I really tried my best to shield the developers from all the bullshit. We had a very difficult customer who changed their mind almost twice a week about things, demanded meetings about the progress 2-3 times a week, didn’t understand that the requested changes won’t be in the testsystem within a day of mentioning them (not even sending us a proper change request in writing, just mentioning them in a meeting) and so on. Not to mention talking with the higher-ups who got nervous when the customer kept complaining and explaining to them that we/the devs are working as fast as possible and that the customer is being unreasonable.

The worst part about that role was not the utterly irrational customer but our own colleagues in development. They unloaded all their frustration about the project on me. I tried to handle it, in a way it’s part of the job. I got shit on by the customer for not meeting their unreasonable demands and ridiculous timelines, got shit on by upper management because this project with this very important customer is having trouble, had to defend myself AND the rest of the team by showing that the customer doesn’t know what they want. Just to then turn around and get screamed at by a dev because he’s sick of having to go to our 1/2-hour-a-week meeting and also how come there’s been four change requests already. He told me I wasn’t doing my job, because all he wants is to implement the requirements as planned half a year ago but I kept sending change requests instead of doing my job as a project manager and shielding him from this shit. Wouldn’t believe me that if the customer had his way, he’d be getting four change requests per week.

Yeah, I’m pissed and also currently looking for a new job. And no way am I ever doing this shit job again, where you’re just everybody’s doormat and get yelled at by customers, bosses and your own team alike.

The straight-A student who could have gotten into any course at any university with her grades ended up getting a degree in art history and works at a museum now. She was never much into art in school, mostly focussed on chemistry actually and thought about studying medicine or biochemistry when we graduated.

Another straight-A student never left our 900-inhabitants village. Everybody thought he’d surely make it big, study medicine or engineering or something like that and work for a big company. He’s working at the small local bank.

On the other hand, one of the girls who was always very anti-school and didn’t care much for grades (I don’t actually know how good her grades were, but definitely not among the top students) is a lawyer at a large law firm now.

Yeah, that’s the other thing. I was a teenager in the 90s and just walking up to someone in public to hit on them or flirting with people who are working was seen as weird back then too. You met people through hobbies, school, parties or clubs.

“Approaching in public” can mean so many different things. What most women have a problem with is being approached in a situation where the man has some form of power over her. For example a cashier or server has to be friendly and smile or she will risk her job. Being approached is uncomfortable, because too many men don’t understand it when the no comes with a smile. They are also in a position of power, because they can complain about her or make a scene and get her in trouble.

In this case the TSA agent has some form of power over her and could give her trouble if she refuses. She has no way of knowing if a “no” will be met with understanding or with him holding her up, being insistent, keeping her from passing. That’s what makes it especially uncomfortable.

NRW. Rheinland, um genau zu sein. Hier gibt es auch seeehr viele “Wir haben das schon immer so gemacht”-Leute.

You know what the worst thing is? He wasn’t the only one by far. Later at a different company another Teamleader told me I have to go out to eat with everybody. When I said the restaurant isn’t save for me (lots of nuts on the menu), he just said I HAVE to come and that’s what the Epipen is there for. I complained to HR and the HR lady asked why I don’t just do a therapy against allergies. Told me about some esoteric bullshit that’s supposed to cure all allergies and advised me to do that so I can better fit in with the company culture.

Just looking at the people around me (mostly colleagues, I’m not friends with this kind of people) it’s no surprise, when just about anything triggers them to vote AfD. Some actual examples:

“We have a vegetarian day at the cafeteria now. Stupid Greens forcing me to not eat meat one day a week. I’m going to vote AfD next election.”

“They built a new bicycle lane on my way to work. Now I’m forced to stick to the speed limit because of all the bicyclists on MY road blocking me. It’s a straight street, I should be able to go 80 even though it’s inner city. I’ve always been going 80 there! Stupid Greens, I’m going to vote AfD next election.”

“Supplier X stopped issuing their bikini model calendar. Everything is forbidden nowadays! Noone ever cared for bikini model calenders, but the Greens want to forbid every little piece of fun. Stupid woke culture. I’m going to vote AfD.”

And let’s not forget that one boss who told me that my life-threatening nut allergy was woke nonsense, because back in his day “everybody just ate what’s on the table and noone died, but nowadays everybody has to feel special by making up things they won’t eat.”

They just want to go back to 1950s culture, when gay people, trans people, allergies, ADHD, autism, veganism, climate change and anything other than straight white dudes and straight white housewives “didn’t exist”, because how dare the world be more complex than a Rosamunde Pilcher movie.

I have no trust in the current coalition to make that happen…

That’s what people have been saying for years and yet the AfD is already the second strongest in the last election…

1. Breaking Bad. I liked it at the beginning, but it had too much violence for me. Or more specifically, violence being done as a crutch. Yeah, I get it, the character is ruthless and brutal yadayada. Lots of fake blood. Can we get back to the story?

2. A lot of the most popular Anime. I found One Piece pretty boring after the first few episodes. Same goes for Naruto. I do like Anime, but I mostly stick with shorter series that conclude the story in 20-30 episodes.

3. Black Mirror. The first couple of episodes were great, the rest was mostly the same with slight variations.

I feel like there is also a pathologization of being single. I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, so before most of social media. I’m also from a village where most people knew each other.

There were a couple of nerdy, shy guys who never had a girlfriend by the time of graduation. I only had one boyfriend at 16 for 2 month before his friend told me he was only dating me as a dare. I was “ugly” and “not a real girl” because I didn’t wear makeup and mostly wore jeans and Tshirts. Stupid village kids.

Anyway, similar things happened to the nerdy guys. But no one started crying about all men/women being awful and no one became an incel. Several girls and boys in my class never dated by the time we graduated and that just wasn’t a big deal. Nowadays everybody’s being told there’s something wrong with them if they’ve never had a partner by age 17.

I was always so confused by the tongue areas because it never seemed to work for me. Especially sweet, I tasted sweet far more at the back than on my tip.

If you would like to try some different fantasy than the traditional that is based in European folklore, I can recommend “Iyanu Child of Wonder” by Roye Okupe. The world is inspired by Yoruba culture.

I feel you. I’m allergy to all nuts (that are tested for) and soy. Dairy, eggs and nuts sounds like a shitty combination because a lot of the vegan stuff is nut-based.

I meow to find my husband and he will meow back.

Soon we can translate all the GDR jokes and use them for the US.

Maybe just really good intuition and knowledge of human behavior. You could probably make a lot of money as a psychic.

Have you read The perfume by Patrick Süskind? You sound like a real-life Grenouille. Without the murdering, hopefully :D