Regarding the topic, looks like I don't hug nearly enough. Not surprising, honestly—I live alone, and hugging random people on the street isn't really happening at this hour 🤔 I’d say any hug, regardless of how you categorize them, is a good hug 😁
But what’s actually the upside to hugging complete strangers?
Honestly, those "free hugs" signs should just be banned altogether. Or, if we’re going to be completely consistent about it—and I mean really consistent—we might as well just permit and encourage people to offer free sex in the middle of city squares and public streets.
Joshua Perez6 said:I usually stay far away from those kinds of topics😳 It honestly creeps me out when I end up being the last one to post in a thread like that, so I'm always praying someone else will comment just so I'm not stuck there looking like the final word.😳 Compared to your average liberal forum user, I've clearly got a stick up my ass.😳
Error, wouldn't that actually make you somewhat competent regarding the subject at hand? 🤔
Sam Jones8 said:Fine, but you still haven't actually explained the first part.
The whole comparison between hugging and sex really falls apart right at that specific "parallel."
See, you hug your own people—your inner circle—and then, if you feel like it, you might extend that to others. But you aren't just out there hugging strangers if you don't have that foundation with your own kind first.
This isn't really what we should be discussing here—honestly, I feel like I’ve seen this exact debate pop up a million times in other threads already. Besides, I’ve probably lost count of how many times lately I’ve found myself quoting Robert Frost regarding the whole matter (basically, if someone wants to show affection, let them—but if they don't, they certainly shouldn't force it on anyone else). Personally, I just can't get behind that kind of behavior.
BTW, I truly don't have an issue with certain people doing whatever they want, however they choose to live their lives. As long as we maintain enough distance from one another, everything is fine—good for them, and good for me.
E: I don't really get what you mean by "parallel" in this context—like, in terms of a lifespan? It’s definitely not happening at the exact same time.
Though, I guess there might be cases where it works.
Take those movie tropes, for example, where some guy cheats and tries to play it cool by saying, "She meant nothing to me." 😁 But then, if his girl actually walks away, he ends up totally devastated. I don't know...
Parallel means—well, exactly that, parallel. Not necessarily perfectly simultaneous 😬.
It's more like... you're having a meaningful relationship with Mary because you love her, but then occasionally you slip up and have something casual—you know, maybe you were drunk, it didn't mean anything, and your heart was still with Mary the whole time...
Sam Jones8 said:That sounds about right coming from you.
Look, everyone’s wired differently. I don’t mind hugging people I care about or even just folks who are cool, even if they aren't my inner circle, you know? It’s not like I’m being fake. Sometimes a moment just hits, people feel like it’s time for a hug, and it just happens. Does that mean I’m taking anything away from my closest friends? Or does it somehow cheapen the deep stuff? Not even close.
It’s like the whole thing with casual hookups versus actual intimacy—some people are totally fine with both. Like I said, they don't see one as making the other any less meaningful, right? They don't think a fling somehow ruins the real deal. But then you’ve got the people who look at it from the exact opposite perspective.
At the exact same time? Or, you know, side-by-side?
Sam Jones8 said:There are a million different ways to show someone you care, just like there are a million types of hugs, right? Personally, I’m all about that move where you just rest your cheek against 😍, but let’s be real—that’s strictly reserved for my inner circle.
Not every hug carries the same weight or hits the same level of intimacy, either. And honestly, our emotions aren't always dialed up to the same intensity every single time...
I suppose we’d probably find some "American scientist" somewhere🙄 who has gone ahead and established a definitive link between how someone handles a hug and how they treat people in general.
Look, I am a staunch advocate for hugging—well, pardon me, hugging 😍my 😍inner 😍circle/special ones/loved ones—but when it comes to everyone else, I much prefer (and I say this for everyone's benefit) maintaining a level of distance that is significantly greater than the space occupied by my own intimacy.
A hug is something beautiful, something vital, and—let’s be honest—something deeply intimate.
The problem is, if you’re out there hugging everyone you see, you aren't actually hugging anyone at all.
I suppose this obsessive need to quantify every single little thing is just a way to appeal to a massive, mindless audience—people who probably couldn't care less about any actual depth or analysis. I can just picture Brand from St John in The Middle of Nowhere, clutching some self-help book, meticulously logging her daily hug statistics like it's some kind of scientific breakthrough.
Gerald Jackson5 said:The gentleman described it quite beautifully—how we have become a society commercialized to a painful degree, including our very idea of romance... yet you've isolated a single sentence and are acting surprised by it? 🤔
Who exactly is this "we" that supposedly commercialized everything?
The man is using freaking—and I mean freaking—commercials as his primary examples. What does that have to do with the actual lives of everyday people? Absolutely nothing, obviously.
hiddenbadger14 said:It’s not dead, it’s just been hijacked by corporations. You see it everywhere: "Romantic weekend getaway in NYC for $X," or "Treat your better half to a fancy Valentine's Day at our restaurant," or "Celebrate the holidays with Ferrero Rocher," and so on and so forth. Nobody is out here advertising stuff like, "Surprise your partner by having a spotless, vacuumed house regardless of what day it is"—there's just zero magic in that.😬
I’m really not a fan of those big public displays of affection, begging for attention, or posting anniversary tributes all over social media—that kind of thing is just 🤮 to me. But doing something small, just for her (for us), just so she knows I want to make her day special? Yeah, that's the good stuff.🙂
Last summer, we were sipping cocktails at this lounge bar. There was a light breeze, a table right by the ocean away from all the crowds... it was 👍
So, let me get this straight—to you, having a clean house and a freshly vacuumed floor is some grand gesture of special attention (or heaven forbid, love or romance?!) toward a partner? It isn't just basic, everyday participation in household chores?
The term "partner" actually traces its roots back to the Latin word "partitio," which fundamentally refers to a division.
The real point I'm trying to make here—and it’s an important distinction—is that we aren't talking about a "divisive" kind of split, like a divider separating things, but rather about parts that constitute a single whole.
In that specific sense, my partner is the one who completes me to form that whole. To me, there's something quite beautiful about that idea 😍.
George Rivera3 said:Fine, so today I learned that expressing emotions is nothing more than empty, mindless chatter.
I explicitly stated that I show how I feel through my actions. My boyfriend knows he is loved, just as everyone close to me does.
It isn't some grand, sweeping surge of contempt; I simply used to make jokes at others' expense when I was younger, and I stopped because it’s simply bad manners now...
And I have learned that you are prone to passive aggression—and that's even after failing to read the entire post (nobody, for that matter, was talking about empty chatter, let alone *only* empty chatter.
What a shame.
BTW, saying "I'm polite now, so I don't mock people anymore" isn't exactly a shift in attitude from "I despise and loathe them."
George Rivera3 said:I can't quite put my finger on why it leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.
I’ve always been more about the actual work, the tangible results. I feel things too, but for me, it’s more about trying to convey something gentle... only to end up just saying, hello, Selma 😬...
that's just how I operate
The reactions you're describing—contempt and disgust—are incredibly visceral. It’s also somewhat telling that when asked to explain the "why" behind those feelings, you immediately pivot to discussing your own supposed inability to express strong emotions.
If I were in your shoes, I would probably try to dig deep into the roots of those reactions—really get under the surface—and then systematically tear them out by the source.
George Rivera3 said:I look back on that whole period with nothing but pure contempt. I’ve certainly learned how to keep my impulses in check by now, but when I was much younger, I used to be incredibly dismissive of the guys I was seeing. I could be truly awful... 🤣
A single question in the title, followed by two entirely different questions in the intro post 🙂.
Let’s start with two definitions I pulled from the web: one says romance is "an enchantment characterized by a diminished sense of reality; daydreaming, or escapism," while the other claims "romance consists of the words and actions that make our special someone feel loved and unique."
Therefore—if we are being logical—romance implies a certain detachment from reality, which makes it fundamentally impossible to sustain 24/7 within the lived experience of a relationship. To claim that minor, mundane expressions of affection constitute "romance" is either a devaluation of the concept itself or a desperate attempt to deny one's own lack of romanticism.
Complaining about some supposed disappearance of romance is just as geriatric as whining about how today's youth are terrible, ill-mannered, lazy, and disrespectful. Nothing has actually vanished: those who know how, will find a way, and those who don't—or simply won't—will always find an excuse.
As for the question regarding one's own romantic words and deeds, it will remain—oh, how shocking 😬—unanswered. Romance is a two-person, exclusive affair, and attempting to provide proof of such intimacy by bragging about your own examples just to participate in a pissing contest is, quite frankly, very unromantic. Just as a gentleman kisses, a romanticist romanticizes—and stays silent 😍.
Nancy Gomez26 said:The motivations of their voters are obvious enough. The real question is why the (remaining, bloated) majority fails to punish this behavior at the polls. Is the opposition truly that incompetent, or do voters simply view them all as one indistinguishable mass? Perhaps the Republican Party’s habit of obstructing everything except their own agenda has bred total apathy. Or maybe the opposition just isn't doing the legwork within their own constituencies. I suspect the Republican Party understands the average American perfectly and plays that hand with precision. You don't "accidentally" reclaim power repeatedly after so many failures. One could actually learn something from them—and then use those lessons against them. Perhaps the real answer is that we haven't had any truly successful politicians in power to begin with. We haven't seen leaders capable of drawing a clear line between themselves and previous administrations; it all feels equally dismal. There are no major triumphs here, unless you count "securing federal grants" or joining various associations as an achievement.
It's likely both.
Throw in that tired old rhetoric—you know the one, where they claim "The Republican Party built America, and everyone else just hates our way of life and wants to drag us back to the days of the old regime"—and you have your answer. I suppose the party leaders themselves don't actually use those lines—not directly, anyway—but there always seems to be some supposed "fringe element" stepping up to handle that specific part of the campaign strategy. And, well, that's how you end up with massive voter apathy.
The man was essentially acting as a pro bono headhunter, yet now he’s being targeted by those who apparently harbor nothing but pure vitriol for everything American because of it... 😢
Dealing with incompetent buffoons is just a part of life, I suppose. But what’s truly inexcusable—what really gets under my skin—is having a PR department led by someone who can't even manage to send an email to the right recipient.
The whole point of vaccinating is to keep people out of the hospital, off ventilators, and away from death. That means you prioritize the folks most likely to end up in that situation first, then move to the next group. By the time you get to the kids—who have almost zero chance of ending up in the ICU from this—you're basically just trying to stop the virus from moving through the community so everyone else stays safe.
Look, I have nothing against vaccinating kids to help protect adults and finally put this pandemic behind us. But I draw the line at my children being used as shields for all those "jerks" who refuse to step up and take care of themselves. Once they finally get their shots, then we can talk about the kids.
And this isn't just some "opinion" of mine; it's the logical playbook that every successfully vaccinated country follows.
So, let me get this straight—by refusing to vaccinate your own child, you're basically hoping those unvaccinated adults catch the virus and, if luck would have it, maybe even die?
jadetinker85 said:Fine. I clearly assumed that with 11,000 infections, the death toll would be higher... if we’re looking at the ratio we see here in the States. But hey, they probably just have better healthcare, so despite the massive spike in cases, deaths topped out at 56. But with vaccination rates that high, that shouldn't be happening, right?
By the way, how many vaccinated and recovered people does it actually take to hit herd immunity?
Do you honestly not realize that you just completely dug your own grave here? 🤣
So, you fixate on data from Israel and then casually admit you were "convinced" there should have been hundreds of deaths alongside that many infections? By the way—those "hundreds of deaths" you just made up out of thin air aren't just "a bit more," they're nearly ten times higher than what actually happened...
Setting aside the fact that you're hysterically waving around "data" that is really just a byproduct of your own "convictions" and assumptions: did it ever occur to you that the reason they don't have those hundreds of deaths you're so certain about is precisely due to high vaccination rates?
And so, that very same Israel you were using as proof that vaccines are useless ended up biting you right in the ass.