If this is a technical question:

Prompt the AI on one of hundreds of available websites: https://perchance.org/ai-artgen Or self-host your AI and prompt that: https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui

The above are just for images. I’m sure there are identical counterparts for creating conversation bots.

If this is a question questioning why people do it:

Loneliness? Involuntary isolation/alienation? Dopamine quick fix? Pick your poison.

PS: the below pictures are AI created. I prompted the above website to make me a Lúthien from Tolkien’s world holding a silmaril. Perhaps after it being cut out of the belly of the werewolf Carcharoth and returned to king Thingol, Lúthien took it from her father, the king, snuck out with it at night and in the silent forest of Doriath reminisced the time she spent with her beloved Beren. The blood could indicate her, in her rage and sadness, having slewn a few orcs that had strayed to far into the realm of Thingol.

PS: I hate it when AI art is allowed on forums where actual artists display what they paint and draw. AI is not art. It’s just good fun. Sometimes.

I was 21. As an exchange student in Japan. Everything was perfect. I developed, as you said it yourself, home management skills and I realized how good I am at life. This was 16 years ago.

At work. After a six year “dry spell” filled with depression and self-hatred, one day, I realized that a colleague was actually talking to me, on her own volition, on a regular basis. Un-f*cking-believable (in a positive way). We have been hanging out regularly for a year now. I’m so grateful for her.

I’ve only had amicable breakups (37, male, single), except for this one: when I was still figuring things out in eighth grade, a girl that I had broken up with threatened to pour coke on me - which she was holding in her hand - which made me miss a final exam and the teacher wouldn’t have it so I failed the class. Dafuq.

Just realized your question was about exes trying to come back to our lives. Never mind.

Setup: Tidal through USB Audio Player on my Samsung Galaxy S23 with an Audioquest DragonFly Cobalt DAC and Sennheiser IE 900 headphones.

Why: because I can taste the sound in my mouth

Some favorites: Erutan, Diana Panton, The Ink Spots, The 8-Bit Big Band, Dir en grey, Eluveitie, Aimer, Paramore, Shiina Ringo, Tokyo Jihen, Yorushika

Wait until you write code that is self-hosting!

Weird. I used to do video games and I used to run around in the forest building tree houses or, at the rare occasion, snatch a few bag of potato chips from our local potato chips factory. The Legend of Zelda, tree houses and potato chips. What a great life. This only changed when I was finally admitted to a musical school at the age of 15. 🎹 Today, at the age of 37, I can only game for an hour before my back starts aching. That’s when I go outside and touch grass for a couple of hours.

Noice.🦊

It’s late and I need to sleep so I’ll just paste some links for now, but you are talking about such a wide variety of issues that’s it kind of hard to give a short, succinct answer.

Some privacy tips that I follow, by Naomi Brockwell: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt3zZ-N423gXV-0pdxnRn-nw0WzVKh4NY

Same, but by Rob Braxman: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKqVMfkpsufHUWAwU9nnkHnhSRH1TBgF3

I went to university in my home country in Europe. At first, I just wanted to pursue my passion, which was the Japanese language. I had no future plans whatsoever. While writing the thesis for my bachelor’s degree, I was asked to help out the university staff with teaching some seminars. That in turn made me realize that I love working with people, that I love teaching and that becoming a Japanese teacher would simply give me the best of both worlds. That realization led me to applying for a university in Japan, where I did my master’s degree in education. Also because the prefect at the university in my country told me that a degree in education from Japan would make me eligible for a full time contract as a Japanese teacher. After returning to my country, I learned that my government had implemented a policy that made it impossible for me to get hired as an adjunct (a teacher that only teaches and whose contract doesn’t require them to produce a certain amount of papers per year). I had no intentions of becoming a researcher, even part time, so I gave up on becoming a Japanese teacher.

Looking back at my choices, even though I do something completely unrelated today (probation officer and case worker), I regret nothing. Going to college connected me with the world. It made me academically smarter, emotionally more intelligent and it opened up my eyes to my ignorance and made me humble.

In my country, you are only allowed to own firearms if you are 1) a hunter or 2) an active member of a shooting club. I just registered and now I am on the wait list. 2026 will be the year I buy my first firearm ever. Some kind of pistol. Eager to learn! :)

The poor fucking people around you. You seem to know it all. 🤮

Wait… WHAT? Here I thought Pokémon are real too D: wtf…

I agree. In this particular instance, I was just unlucky that the girl didn’t take it too well. Others girl have simply told me no and that was that. In fact, I kind of appreciate that she felt that she is able to talk to our boss about it. I think it shows what an open workplace culture we have.

Yup, I learned my lesson. Ugh…

Yeah, I felt that atmosphere the other day…

Thanks for all the various perspectives!

Yep, I almost shat my pants when she told me off, so, no more office flirting…

Fortunately, at my workplace, at this level of inconveniencing a fellow female coworker, won’t get me terminated. I followed up with both the girl that got bothered by me and with my boss later on, and it really didn’t seem like a big thing. I think they just wanted to halt my behavior before it “escalated” or whatever.

Anyway, after reading your comment, I will never look at how office romances are portrayed in TV the same again. 🤣 It’s nothing to joke about.

PS: another coworker who heard about my situation said, “we don’t shit where we eat, okay?” I laughed my ass off at first, but I guess I’ll just treat the workplace as off limits.