Sup Nick! Love the energy, and if you legit haven’t heard of our friend Nicole, this is hilarious in a good way.

Looks like you’re also a sh.it.head (don’t worry - this is a good thing!), and so far don’t look to be a shithead (which would be a bad thing) so in my book we’re already friends :) Welcome!

Leaning into this will probably garner attention from the right sort of women for you. The ones attracted to “traditional masculinity” (which is kind of a trap in some respects anyway) probably wouldn’t be attracted to you sexually in the first place, based on what you describe here. So you don’t really lose anything by what you plan to do. Go for it!

And if anyone gives you guff about it, tell them to fuck off (or whatever response appropriate to your vibe, but carrying a similar message, works best).

If you’re not daily driving Arch, btw, did you even join Lemmy?

I know you’re not daily driving Arch because you didn’t mention it.

(Jokes, obvs. Congrats on the self-discovery!)

Not necessarily direct social skill things, but stuff that could put you in slightly more comfortable circumstances to work on it:

-Karaoke. If you like singing, this is a no brainer. You then have easy introductory topics (song choices, music, telling people they did a good job, etc.). Where I am the demographics are pretty wide, it may skew older where you are.

-If you have interest in doing so, see if you can join a band, maybe with an eye to doing some low-tier gigs (or high-tier, that’d be up to you and your bandmates).

-It’s hard mode, but like singing and playing music in public? Get a busking permit! Interact with the strangers passing by, etc. Best case scenario, you make some pocket change. Worst case scenario, you do something you like that puts you in front of people in a non-bar setting.

Working in something you’re passionate about and at least sort of good at can put you a little more at ease, sometimes.

Thanks for saying this. There’s literally a gay sex shop called One in Ten in my city, for this reason, that’s been around forever.

Lol, I literally got called out for reading Infinite Jest on a bus. Wasn’t a flex, the bus was just my primary reading time on weekdays and it was on my ‘to finish’ list.

Agreed that I probably looked like a jackass.

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Cool idea!

Man, that’s a grade A beef. Or wait, is it? This keeps happening and how the hell are we going to know!?

[Yes, I’m making cheap jokes as the U.S crumbles. Yes, I feel this is necessary.]

The downvotes seem a bit much for that opinion, but I am imagining you eating a plain chicken breast and am deeply sad about that image.

Garlic, motherfucker, do you use it!?

(Love kale and the weird little mutants called kalettes. If you don’t use any aromatics or seasoning though, you’re gonna have a bad time)

👍

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This is a good place to start: https://fedidb.org/software/

I like the idea of PeerTube and hope it catches on, but I wouldn’t call it a YouTube replacement at this point. There are services that feed youtube content to users remotely though (there is/was a link-converter bot that went around that annoyed some people here, but a) can’t remember the name, and b) can’t remember the actual software involved).

What makes this hilarious to me for horny check purposes is the context it was used in.

Depends on who exactly you mean, but thinking of the ‘high school bullies’ of my day in general, mostly prison.

It’s funny you mention tattoos - my favourite part was the huge endorphin rush it produced. I’d wager the whole tattoo ‘addiction’ thing tattoo artists and the heavily inked are familiar with is usually endorphin based, with aesthetics serving as justification.

You’re right about stubbing a toe or biting your tongue, but there are other activities people engage in that involve a direct seeking out of pain (Drag’s in this thread talking about an unfortunate one, then there’s stuff like certain activities in BDSM play [which, a surprising amount of the time, isn’t always a precursor to sex], etc.). With enjoying really, really spicy stuff, there’s the stimuli [pain], the endorphin release, and the justification and side effects that may bolster justification (‘flavour’ even in cases where little is actually detectable beyond ‘mouth hot’; satiation after getting food in you, etc.).

I’m just some random guy speculating (I’m sure there’s studies somewhere, though tricky to do direct research ethically), but I imagine it goes something like this for a lot of folks in a lot of contexts:

Stimuli -> Pain -> Dopamine release. If dopamine response is greater than pain response, is a good thing (then justified with reference to specific stimuli and context of stimuli). If pain response is greater than dopamine response, is a bad thing.

…reading it back I think specific type of stimuli, context, and the subject’s predilections are very relevant to this calculation, but not a psychologist or neurologist, so idk.

IIRC it produces endorphins, though for a significant amount of folks not well enough that they’ll subject themselves to it.

What would this sound like played in aplay?

The dog park is an excellent choice, from what I’ve heard from dog owners. Between that, walkies forcing you to get out and moving regularly, and good ol’ fashioned companionship, dogs are just great in general, though certainly require a high level of commitment and care.