14 year olds in factories used to be a punchline. Now it’s just par for the course in some parts of the US

The most infuriating part about it is I know that if I rant about how terrible bbt is, it will only cement me as Sheldon in their minds.

Regarding the former: I’m autistic and have a lot of experiences telling me that I should hide parts of myself from others to be acceptable. It doesn’t work. It’s better for one-off social interactions, and I should rein in my info-dumping in some scenarios, but it’s easier to make better friends if I just share myself with others.

What do you say in lef of that?

I had a beautiful moment related to the word “bellend,” and now I love it.

I was one of two native English speakers in a German class in Germany, and we’d been together 20 hours/week for a few months, so the teacher and students knew each other pretty well. The other native English speaker was blatantly on his phone one day, which was his choice in an adult education class, but it’s disrespectful. The teacher going through gerunds with us (-ing in English, but in German, it’s -end), and after trying to get his attention for a few moments, just shouted, “Mickey, weißt du was “bellend” bedeutet?” (“Mickey, do you know what “barking” means?”) Mickey froze for a second, then told the teacher he was sorry and she was right.

The teacher (who did not speak good enough English to have done it intentionally) was completely caught off guard and I suddenly put it together and nearly lost my shit, but Mickey didn’t know we were doing gerunds and I wasn’t about to explain the meaning of bellend to everyone in the class, so I experienced this perfect crossover of language alone.

Oh my god, that’s what I want too. I would love to have a garden and a nice kitchen and just concentrate on my little world. I’m just not selfish enough to fully abandon everything that’s not in my little bubble.

The wanting isn’t the problem, doing it with no thought for anyone else is.

I’m 33 and just taught my first real class at a university. The students are 19-21, and the first thought I had was that they were all babies. They’re not really, and they deserve all the rights that adults are entitled to, but they’re not dateable for me.

I get that as an instructor there’s another layer of responsibility between us, but they don’t even look fully grown to me

A llama lama

I foresee an unfortunate rise in self foraged mushroom poisonings

Plus, he’s young enough that if nobody kills him, he’ll definitely have to answer for his actions at the American version of the Nuremberg Trials.

I’m genuinely trying to think if I’ve ever seen a single nonsecular Easter decoration.

The lettuce is so much longer lived.

I was so excited for a second because I assumed the wristbands were in support. This is such a loser thing for an adult to do though. I can’t imagine setting out in the morning to make a child feel less secure and accepted.

My cousin dated two guys named Dewey (back to back, too). When she introduced the second one to us, we called him Dewey Twoey

Two days after breaking up, I found out that my ex had lied to me about everything about himself, and had gotten out of prison for beating his mother to death shortly before we met. I met him because he had been a canvasser with a friend of mine (also concerning, tbh), and he just fit right into her friend group, and nobody had any information about his life before that. Once we started comparing stories after we found out, it all clicked into place.

Even worse, he killed his mom after she tried to give him some tough love (it sounded like normal, healthy parenting from the reports) about drinking too much and I broke up with him for the same reason. I was certain he was going to kill me for a while there, but that’s no longer a worry because I live in another country and he can’t get a passport.

Name: Nora

Nicknames: Nörchen, Norora Borealis, The Baby, Guardgoyle, My Darling, Mürzel

I felt so bad for him

That read as pity to me, but good, I’m glad it isn’t. I don’t even have a penis, so no problems here, lol.

Handsome man who’s good in bed and gets laid… maybe your pity is misplaced

My boss and I had lived for a few years in Italy and Germany, respectively, but were both in the US again at this time and had a jokey rivalry about which of us had integrated better. She was looking for jazz music for our restaurant and said “god, I love scat. Don’t you?” and my dumb ass responded before I could think about it for a second “I’m not that German.” (For anyone confused, I don’t know why, but some Americans think Germans are into scat. I have not experienced this in any way, and have no idea if it’s at all based in reality, I was just making a joke I shouldn’t have)

She didn’t know what scatophilia was, did NOT enjoy hearing about it, but wouldn’t let it go until I explained my joke.