Fox Darby

Me and the gang hanging out

AITAH for "training" a guy "like a dog"? 1(23F) have recently started seeing this guy (26M). he's super pretty, but he's kind of emotionally unavailable and he's alluded to an unstable/ unhealthy childhood. for context, i also work w socializing abused and neglected dogs at a local shelter and i think how much time i spend w the dogs is impacting the way i interact w ppl. when we were on a date i started subconsciously making mental notes abt him like the notes id make abt a dog. for example, i noticed when we went out to dinner i noticed he ate really quickly and was very anti-sharing (resource guarding) but when i offered to pay and suggested dessert it seemed to make him really happy and a little calmer (food-motivated); he's really particular about his car (territorial/ crate aggression); he likes when i pick where we go/ what we do (eager to please), etc. so, ive started using the tactics id use on a dog w similar problems. recently a friend (22F) pointed out that it's weird that i keep peanut M&Ms on me w the specific purpose of offering the guy one when i see him, and offering them again whenever i can tell he feels vulnerable. she said that im being an asshole be he's a person, not a dog so i shouldn't be "training him like one." i don't think that's fair, im not trying to control him or anything, i just want him to feel comfortable w me the same way i need the animals im helping to be comfortable w me. humans and animals aren't THAT diff after all, we all just want to feel safe and cared for. the guy hasn't noticed yet as far as i can tell. the problem is, my "technique" is yielding really positive results. AITAH? should i stop?

girl.... lmao

trying to assemble the card house of my mind during the hail storm of our time

I know things look bad right now, but I think catastrophizing is unhelpful, and I think catastrophizing from people with money and resources is downright in bad taste. choose what you are going to do to help your people survive this, and do it.

I think of this collision of affects, hot and cold, as one of the basic ways that political discussion derails. we in fact need both styles, and we need to respond to the real situation. your particular personality will almost certainly be useful and you should try to determine how

If you’re in Pittsburgh and you see any ICE activity in your neighborhood, call Casa San José's rapid response team: 412-736-7167.

More info here: www.casasanjose.org/er

Reminder, while you're activated, not to reinvent the wheel. Whatever action you are thinking about taking, someone probably already tried it or something similar to it, so you have the advantage of a fresh new perspective but you're doing yourself no favors if you don't learn from their experience.

Intellectual Property is 1/3rd of the economy of the US empire. The most powerful oligarchs focus increasingly on controlling the avenues of communication and coordination rather than the means of production.

Control over information flows is increasingly detached from capital.

screenshot of my weather app showing it’s -15F here (feels like -25F)

we are the tits of the witches you couldn’t freeze

Joe Biden Frees Leonard Peltier The ailing Native American rights activist has been in prison for nearly 50 years after the U.S. government lied to put him there.

With literally minutes left in his presidency, Joe Biden has granted clemency to Leonard Peltier

It's...not even subtle. Wow. Fuck.

I don't want to get my heart broken again but I'm certainly going to because, with any luck, I have another 40ish years on this planet and the kind of things I'd have to do to myself to go 40 years without the risk of getting my heart broken would probably kill me.

I have a tough time trusting my own sense of what is real. I'm very good at imagining alternate realities and possibilities but sometimes this just leads to paralysis.

Chrysler building between two pigeons, black and white

vintage poster: city of New York municipal airports

Japanese woodblock print: two cranes at sunset

WWII food conservation poster

oh wow

The Library of Congress has a trove of images “free to use and re-use” that are in the public domain - and they’re fantastic

oh I have a huge amount of respect for Lynch but I can only watch a tiny fraction of his work, I can't handle his more intense stuff (sadly because I know that's much of his best work, but I've tried and I just don't have the "spice tolerance" for it)

I just watched Top Gun for the first time

Some of that is work directly on your relationships. Some of it is work on yourself. Some is work you have to trust others to do that you have no control over. Commitment takes many forms. But my parents' story is a good reminder to me that a whole new chapter of your life can start at any time.

But I think what I'm coming to understand as I age is that having these things consistently with anyone also takes work.

The kind of relationship where you can have hot sex for many years without getting bored isn't a casual one -- even if it also doesn't have a traditional escalator trajectory.

So, what does that leave?

Primarily, it leaves pleasure.

What I'm really looking for in my romantic connections at this point in my life is basically great sex, good conversation, enjoying each other's company, celebrating our respective growth & successes outside the project of the relationship.

I still want to love in ways that are aligned with my values but that's because I want to be an internally consistent person who lives up to my own standards, not because relationship anarchy is going to bring down capitalism. (Like, it still might but that's not the reason I'm doing it.)

In the meantime, I've worked out my shit with my bio-family on my own terms.

Materially, I'm stable enough that I don't need to weigh concerns like having a partner to split rent or food costs with.

And I've outgrown the idea that my own personal love life has some grand political significance.

But, at this point in my life, many of these motivating factors are pretty moot. I have vestigial emotional appendages that gesture toward them still...but the reality is that I've already built myself the life and home and family that I want; of course it's always a work in progress but it's here.

(More than anything else here, that one feels like a pre-transition anxiety...but it's still a pattern worth noticing and naming for myself. I'd bet that impulse to be the moon reflecting someone else's light still drives some unconscious practices that it would serve me to unwind.)

I probably also wanted the social validation of being seen as desired by somebody desirable. I've had a habit of dating people who are extremely popular, in part because I was attracted to how "in demand" they were at the start, with predictable results. 😝

I wanted to make family and, conversely, I wanted someone/s I could "take home" to my bio-family -- for all the complex and largely ill-advised reasons any estranged or semi-estranged queer might want that.

I think when I was younger, I really wanted partners who were politically aligned, people who I could collaborate and grow with. Shared goals, shared values, a shared vision for a life together; the relationship itself as a co-creative project greater than the sum of its parts, shining and romantic.

That sounds like a joke but I'm serious. I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want in a relationship at this point in my life, what "partnership" means to me and if it's a kind of thing I even want at all, what types of connection feel worth doing hard work or taking emotional risk for, etc.

I'm 42 years old. My dad and stepmom met when they were about the age I am now and reportedly had the most consistently fantastic sexual relationship of either of their lives for 20+ years until my dad's cancer treatment more-or-less eliminated his libido. I find this story tremendously encouraging.

It's a lovely dream and I've even gotten close a few times...but I've done the math and the probability of it happening (especially without two of the people being a pre-existing couple that "adds a third," not really what I'm looking for) is low enough that it's likely just going to remain a dream.