Jerry Moore5 said:Guilt is an understatement. I know now that what I did back then was wrong—understatement, clearly—and looking back, it’s easily the biggest mistake of my life. Now, I just have to live with it.
I also don't think it's right to reach out to her. She’s still in touch with my sister, so I know she’s doing well, and she’s engaged now on top of that. Countless times I've thought about finding her, whether in person or over the phone, just to talk (or try to) about everything I did. But then I wonder what would actually happen if I did. I don't want to mess up her life if things are going good for her, regardless of how much my own conscience weighs on me. It's been almost five years.
Just call her. Go find her. Find out if she really is happy so you aren't spending the rest of your life banging your head against a wall.
cosmictinker21 said:Seriously, did everyone just get high and go sanitize their chakras or something? Not a single living soul here to actually have a real conversation... 😕
Just empty... totally empty. Especially the first one.
The environment you're working in matters more than people realize. You have to be extremely selective about the group you surround yourself with. Everyone involved needs to be a trusted friend—someone you can truly rely on—because if there isn't total trust, people might try to exploit that heightened state during the opening of the first chakra.
How am I supposed to respect the rules when those morons at that poorly designed intersection near Vrbik and the interstate just installed ANOTHER pedestrian push-button signal? Are these people doing this on purpose, or are they just born idiots? How do you even recruit for these jobs? They probably just shake your head during the interview, and if it rattles like a jar of rice, you're hired... Honestly, with all these stupid signals cluttering up the newly renovated highway, I find myself blowing through red lights without a single ounce of guilt.
Justin Davis75 said:So, if I have a device—let's say a vacuum cleaner—and it says it has a power rating of 2000W... what does that actually mean? Does it mean it uses 2000W over the course of an hour or something? 😕
gentlefalcon said:To be honest, I don't really care who I end up marrying. I'd be perfectly fine just marrying a maid for all I care. 😁 All this talk about true love feels incredibly shaky to me—it lasts a little while, then comes the divorce, then a new relationship, then a new marriage. It’s a cycle. Mostly, I just listen to these miserable stories from people back in college who aren't even particularly idealistic. I don't really have much contact with my extended family anyway. If my mom suggests some girl who happens to be pretty, educated, and smart, why not? 😁 But honestly, the women I see at church are usually plain and dull. They spend their time studying until they're 30, they lack any sense of self-confidence, and—if I haven't made it clear yet—they are religious fanatics. 😍 My mother doesn't have much sway over me; if she did, I'd probably be that obedient child, behaving perfectly within the traditional mold. In reality, we mostly just bicker. I don't pay much attention to the dynamic between my parents, as my dad is much more liberal than she is. My mom is constantly trying to coax me into things, though. For example, today she told me I shouldn't eat meat because it's Lent; I immediately started eating meat, grabbed a deli slice, and ate it right in front of her. Even though I wasn't even craving it, I did it just to spite her, just to show her she can't control me. 😁
You do run into some attractive people at church, but you're right, most of them are airheads. Probably just a lack of self-esteem that they compensate for with faith, using the church as a psychological crutch.
gentlefalcon said:My family wouldn't be too thrilled if my wife turned out to be an atheist or followed some other religion. 😁 I honestly find those hypocritical girls—the ones who claim they are "saving themselves" for someone special when nobody has even approached them by age thirty—to be totally fake. My mom wouldn't necessarily dictate who I marry in the sense of saying, "You must pick this specific person," but she definitely has a very specific "type." For her, physical beauty or education isn't the priority; it's all about being devout and smart. ☕ For me, the criteria are different: I want someone attractive, intelligent, educated, and capable of running a household.
I don't see these girls at the local church, but I see them everywhere during parish fundraisers. And whenever I see one, my mom immediately jumps in with, "See how polite and well-behaved she is!" To which I usually respond that she’s probably just some lonely loser who goes to church because she has absolutely no social life. Besides, kids hanging around priests seem incredibly dull; some of them are even considering entering the priesthood, which adds this weird, stifling layer of youth to the environment.
Let's be real: my mother tries to manipulate me constantly. That is a fact. It’s subtle, too. It sounds like: "You can make your own decisions, obviously; nobody is forcing you. It's just that if someone like you were part of our family, things would be different. We are traditional people, after all."
It’s that cult-like recruitment style: "Why don't you try reading just one passage from the Bible a day? Go to religious ed at the parish, join the choir... you'll see, they travel so much and have so much fun together." 🤣
And what kind of "fun" are we talking about? Five hours spent with three priests, two seminarians, and ten altar servers who are constantly giggling, all while sipping rosehip tea and eating store-bought cookies. ☕
Back when they used to host youth retreats and young people would visit from other countries, my mom suggested I host a few kids overnight and show them around town. They told everyone in the parish that if anyone had the space or the means, they should take them in. I told her straight up: "Fine, you host all ten of them, you take them out for ice cream, I couldn't care less." She hit me with, "Well, I'm working, and you have all this free time." I told her: "I want to use my free time how I please. I’d much rather lounge around the house than play tour guide to some kids from Poland or the Czech Republic."
It’s honestly ridiculous, these manipulative phases. And it definitely damages the relationship. The fanatics look at you like you're the enemy because you're "defiling" the upbringing they provided, which mostly consisted of "you can't do this" and "you can't do that." 😂 I started tuning out that kind of conditioning back in my early school days. In the world of fanatics, the rule is that a child must be obedient and humble because the elders always know better. 🙂 When you dare to disagree, they pull the "Honor thy father and mother" card from the Bible. You can never bring actual logic to the table or have even 30% of your arguments accepted, let alone talk about equality. Luckily, I don't have grandparents around to turn me into their personal hobby for psychological games.🙂
Mom and Dad were watching the Pope’s Angelus broadcast from the Vatican, and my mom turns to me and says, "Look at how many young people are there—it's like the Vatican is right in our own backyard." Most of them seemed to be young folks from developing nations, like Ecuador, Paraguay, or the Philippines 🙂 It’s a completely different worldview. Then, the moment I jokingly suggested changing the name of the "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to "Ubi et orobi," everyone immediately lost their minds 🙂
Earlier this year, they were busy spreading this whole story about some guy who wasn't religious enough, so the devil supposedly appeared to him and started smashing everything in sight 🙂
Look, just realize one thing: you aren't sharing a bed with your mother or your conservative relatives—you're sharing it with your future wife. If you cave to all that pressure now, you're going to ruin your entire life. You have to be clear and unapologetic about this. Whichever woman you actually like, tell those "perfect matches" your mom keeps trying to set you up with to get lost. You only get one shot at this life, and wasting it on a miserable marriage is the ultimate sin.
gentlefalcon said:If I didn't have a personality or any ability to think for myself, who knows what kind of mess I'd be today. But even now, I find myself developing this deep aversion to marriage, simply because my mother would insist my wife be some Catholic fanatic just to keep her happy and ensure I "find happiness." It’s as if the local parish is filled with stunning, Amazonian maidens just waiting to make me the happiest man alive. If that were actually the case, I wouldn't mind at all if she were Catholic. 😁 In reality, it's usually the exact opposite: they are dull, unattractive, uninteresting, and completely bland. But hey, they check all the boxes at Mass. According to my mother's logic, the perfect women for me are the ones sitting in the pews every Sunday, and if they happen to be ugly, well, she just says God made them that way. My dad lucked out; he found a beautiful, devout woman who handles everything while he does absolutely nothing. As for me, I'm stuck looking at the church choir geek who giggles aimlessly every five minutes. But apparently, they’re all just "saving themselves" for someone special. 🤣 Naturally, that's just code for when nobody else wants them.☕ They just rebrand their failed attempts at dating as being "waiting for the One."
Why are they in the hospital? Did they spiral into some sort of vice and end up in rehab? You don't need to give names.
It looks to me like you have a much deeper issue than it seems at first glance. Marriage isn't a bad thing if you're with someone you actually love. Having anyone else meddle in your choice of a partner is just terrible. If your mother keeps pushing those church-dwelling nobodies on you, tell her she's more than welcome to sacrifice herself and marry one of them. Pick your own woman, get married, and move out. It’ll be chaotic at first, but things eventually settle down. It took ten years for my situation to stabilize, but it did. There was blackmail, whining, guilt-tripping, the whole "you don't love me" routine—the entire manipulative playbook... but now, she's quiet as a mouse.
Like I said before, you’ve got to grab a basket at the self-checkout first. You can shove your backpack in there and secure it with a bungee cord. Those specialty bike baskets they sell are always tiny—barely enough room for a kit, let alone flowers, and don't even get me started on trying to fit a backpack in one. Having a basket is a total game-changer. I usually head out dressed down in sweats and a windbreaker. By the time I reach Capitol Hill, I've warmed up, so I just strip off the windbreaker and stuff it into the basket underneath my pack. Fast and easy. Plus, I can pick up some groceries (onions, cauliflower, radishes, whatever) at Pike Place Market, and it all fits perfectly next to my bag. My backpack usually carries the essentials—tools, a spare tube, a backup waterproof jacket if I didn't bring the first one, a chain, and other bits and pieces—plus a shirt, pants, and a long-sleeved fleece that I basically use as a jacket. At work, I keep all my soaps and toothbrushes handy, and I dry my shirt by draping it over my chair back, much to the collective delight of my female coworkers.
Speaking of Ohio, does anyone remember which song that old guy was drumming on his wagon in that Steven Spielberg documentary about hunting goulash? I have a feeling it was "Play For Me," but I can't quite place it...
That little grenade used by young Ilijica? It definitely wasn't being tossed around in Slavonia, but it served the exact same purpose as those famous rocket launchers... much like Milan Babić’s self-serving nonsense or the rattling of Prince Laze’s coin purse.
Maybe you should go see a doctor. Being deaf doesn't exactly grant you superpowers. It's pretty clear you're sensing things that aren't even there, which is honestly a bit concerning...
briskbison41 said:Yeah, the spokes are laced into the hub center, so they definitely deal with some tension during rotation. But when it comes to how the load actually hits the spokes... I think this explanation makes way more sense.
Kind of, sure, but honestly? Once you add weight—like a rider sitting on the bike—the real stress goes to those bottom spokes that are basically touching the ground.
Look, the spokes are under tension, but once that axle takes the hit, it pulls on the top spokes, transferring the force through the rim down to the ground. The pressure on the bottom spokes is negligible because they actually lose tension in the process... plus, they're way too thin to handle much without deforming. A bicycle wheel works the exact opposite way of a heavy-duty spoke on an old farm wagon (and those aren't even spokes, just rigid beams taking the brunt of the weight).