Alan Partridge

What really helped me was simplifying my life and putting myself first. Let’s take your statements one at a time:

Ex-Boyfriend - does not care about you. Don’t waste your energy there. It helped me to mute these people on socials and put them on limited view of my posts if you don’t want to block or remove.

Girlfriend - decide if you want to stay in this situation. What would need to improve to make it better? Will your partner accept these improvements? This should be your top priority. I don’t know you and I don’t know your background but the boyfriend breakup -> new sexuality -> open relationship jump seems confusing, complicated and a lot to take on. Take a hard look and make sure you’re doing this because it’s what you want - not from a place of looking for validation/acceptance or chasing someone.

Long-Time Friend - cut contact fully and take some space. Not now does not mean not ever. I had to have a difficult conversation with a friend recently where they really bought into rumours someone was spreading about me without asking me about it and wanted to make it up to me and I had to tell them I’m happy to be on friendly terms but don’t have the personal emotional capacity for more at this time. You don’t even have to tell the friend this much. You can just decide it and answer or not when you’re ready. No one has you at gunpoint forcing you to talk to people. See above on muting them on socials so you’re not tempted to interact.

Then, fill your time with things you enjoy. Take a fuck it attitude and get out there. For example, I found a group on meetup who had a common interest and went to some nights. It wasn’t expensive - the price of a cup of coffee - and it got me out of the house and interacting with new people. Look for low commitment things so you don’t overextend.

Exercise is good too. I find when I’m in crisis I tend to potato to weather the storm. Then when I’m on the mend I tend to get back into my routine.

Try to notice the way you talk to yourself in daily life too. You’ll get stuck longer if you’re down on yourself. For example jokes like “I’m dumb” become reality and your perception of yourself really quickly. I write one positive line about myself every day in my planner/journal.

I also found finding one to two “hype” people on social media who said positive things to be helpful. You mentioned your anxiety. If you’re not already doing so, seek out healthy, positive content to help you with that. It’s 2025 and therapy is expensive. This is a good first step.

Controversial, but there is a chatgpt therapist extension (not sure if free or paid). If I really feel emotional and stuck, and in my case I couldn’t vent to my friend anymore, I turn on temporary chat and let it fly with the chatgpt therapist. It is helpful to get validation/perspective on my situation in the moment and without judgement.

I know this is a lot but you can get through it by taking small steps. We all go through difficult times throughout life and each one is going to help you build resilience. Again, I don’t know you, your age or your circumstances but your post reads like you are younger. I know it’s cliche but the things that seemed like the world was ending when I was younger don’t even seem like real challenges now. Life really is one crisis after another.

They’re making it harder and harder to do so apparently and to download the books that you buy from their store.

I don’t trust that they won’t make a strong push to lock you into the Amazon ecosystem.

And, bluntly, I don’t trust Bezos, especially after all of this election bullshit he pulled with WaPo where he personally got involved. The chances are now non-zero that Kindle could censor books. If a tyrannical regime told Bezos to remove a list of books from Kindle devices I think he’d roll over and do it. And that’s not right. They’re the customer’s books - they bought them and they get to decide what they read without censorship. And to be clear, I don’t care which way the censorship goes. We shouldn’t be censoring books - full stop.

I used to be such a kindle Stan but I don’t think they will let me have full control over an expensive device that I buy and books that I buy on their platform.

I de-drm every book I buy and side load it onto my devices because no company in the future should be able to tell me what books I can read. I’m currently using a Kobo but if they start fucking around too (no signs of this yet…) I’ll find a device that will respect my freedom.

If you want to sideload your own books and continue to be able to do so, steer clear of any Amazon device.

Not American but - Freedom From Religion Foundation? Love their commercials featuring Ronald Reagan’s son.

“I’m Ron Reagan, unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.”

Not trying to fight you but I think people should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Abortion isn’t a culture war it’s literally my life at risk as a woman.

The campaign was just not explicit enough and America is ill educated by design on the topic of reproduction.

And I’ve come to the realization that most people don’t want to grapple with horrific things until it happens to them and it’s too late. See the pandemic - all the people who were boasting on fb about not protecting themselves and not getting the vaccine until their families were posting about those same people being dead.

Dropping this here - no woman wants to tell that story.

Well and like… all women were just confirmed to be second class citizens.

If we accept the premise that God doesn’t condone abortion care even in instances where women miscarry or the baby dies then surely dick pills aren’t natural either.

It seems to be that the popular vote in America is saying that women are whores who can die and everything men do gets a pass including sexual assault and cheating on their wives.

Timothy Snyder - On Tyrrany

For my friends in America who did not want this or deserve this.

The ones who supported this can reap the karma that they gave sewn.

Bracing for impact in Canada.

Americans don’t realize we have our own lil JD primed and ready to take over here as well, funded and helped by Republican strategists and think tanks oh boy.

Take it one step further and that sense of wonder is why I feel the powers that be reacted swiftly to squash psychedelics and shut down all research into them, unless the research benefitted the national security cartel, of course.

It’s difficult for rulers to maintain capitalist control when you can eat a piece of paper and have the wonders of the universe revealed to you and realize that it’s supposed to be about loving other humans. Makes neverending consumption and 9-5 work seem really lame in comparison.

My city has a local company that rents storage units and they have entirely too many locations relative to the population of our city such that I believe they’re a criminal enterprise. I believe they construct so many new buildings for money laundering purposes and to facilitate human trafficking and drug running out of them.

Breaking news, I just googled them and one of the owners was convicted in his 20s of trying to sell poached falcons to Saudi Arabian royalty. The plot thickens.

This happens with people too. If you don’t get an urn they’re in a bag inside a box.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, to paraphrase the famous quote.

Point being that they didn’t know what Lyme Disease was until they made the breakthrough discovery.

Your smartphone can’t see viruses or heat but other cameras can. Point being, there’s lots a normal camera can’t see.

Several things.

1. Everyone seems to be stuck on the fact that travel to get here would be interstellar and that’s impossible. Another hypothesis could be that they’re inter-dimensional or ultra-terrestrial, possibly living in the ocean.
2. The famous videos released by DOD and reported on in the NY Times.
3. If the accounts of these videos by trained military pilots is to be believed then a) they can accelerate many times beyond what any known military craft can to the point where the structural integrity of any known aircraft would fail. b) They were observed entering and exiting the water.
4. If a) then maybe our smartphone cameras cannot see them clearly due to speed or cloaking technology. I’d point to the “Jellyfish” video leaked this year where the UAP was captured by infrared only. Source.. Most normal cameras can’t see lots of things.
5. Kirkpatrick was clearly running diversion tactics on this issue before he left to the Department of Energy. He lied about meeting with individuals about Skinwalker Ranch (the individual produced receipts), he’s purposefully deceptive with his wording - “aliens”, “UFOs” when asked specific questions about Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) and UAP, and gets the facts about the most famous cases wrong when trying to discredit them. Most recently he claimed that one of the videos was an optical illusion because it was filmed during the day but the video was in fact filmed at night.
6. J Allen Hynek, head of Project Bluebook, which was a government program to debunk UAP. The guy who coined the phrase “Swamp Gas”. He finished his work with Bluebook and basically did a 180 and for the rest of his life claimed the government had pressured him into coming up with debunking theories. He believed in UAP and became an advocate for the rest of his life. Why?
7. Rendlesham Forest case, which prompted the US Government to medically pay one of the soldiers who was subject to the phenomenon.
8. The former Canadian head of our DOD and other very senior government officials which speak freely after retirement and say that there is a coverup. Recently Harold Malmgren presidential advisor to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, claimed that he was briefed on “Otherworld Technologies.” Obama saying famously in that interview that there are things in our skies and we don’t know what they are. He could have just said no they’re not real - why didn’t he?
9. Famous reports in WW2 of fighter pilots seeing metallic orbs, just like the ones still reported today. There was no drone tech back then.

What would be enough proof if what we’re dealing with is beyond our current comprehension? Do they need to trot it out on live TV? Lyme disease wasn’t discovered until relatively recently like the 70s or 80s iirc and it was because a Doctor got it. Up until then they were saying it was juvenile arthritis.

I’m just saying that there has been a lot going on recently if you pay attention.

Either a lot of really high level officials are lying or military/intelligence is. Knowing how going public with this stuff can ruin your life, what possible motivation would they have to lie. There is no big money in this.

Uh yeah it kind of is? You’re the one who said it’s about the Last Supper (incorrect) and who has a bee in their bonnet about drag queens for whatever reason.

People have been performing different gender roles for hundreds of years. In Shakespeare’s time they didn’t let women act in plays so it was all men.

Japanese Kabuki theatre is also all men acting in male and female roles.

And yes, Ancient Greece - y’know, where the Olympics originally come from - also had men dressed in drag for female roles in their theatrical performances as women generally did not act in theatre.

Let’s also not forget France’s most famous drag king, Joan of Arc!

So I’m not sure what the issue seems to be.

You need this.

It is likely not legally habitable. And to make it so for a renter would be beyond my current financial capabilities.

I have a second home but I inherited it. It would need 100s of ks in renos to rent out. It wouldn’t bring me much money to sell it - would probably need to sell for land value only.

But - it’s a place of refuge for my family member in an emotionally abusive relationship, a friend struggling with her marriage, a crash space if anyone I love is in a rough spot. It’s brought my family together and it’s where we gather.

I don’t think this is wrong because I am using it for net positive purposes in the long term, and someone otherwise probably couldn’t use it - it would be a tear-down.