Watermark710

Americans have no more third places

I have never understood this claim. Do parks and libraries not exist where you live? I live in a pretty rural area, but I can drive to the closest town and hang out in the Public Square all day, and there are always a couple dozen people there as long as the weather is nice. They even host a farmer’s market every Thursday from June to November, and they have an arts and music festival once a month from June to September.

The casino hosts free outdoor concerts in their parking lot every Thursday night from May to September. I’m going to see a Lady Gaga cover band on the 7th, an ABBA cover band on the 21st, and a few others over the course of the summer.

I can hang out in the bookstore for hours without anyone getting mad. They’ve got a nice little cafe if I want an espresso or a yummy pastry, but it’s not required. They also have nice clean bathrooms, which is always a plus.

I could hang out at the mall, but that’s more of a teenager/retiree spot, and I’m not in either of those demographics. My 17 year old granddaughter goes there with her friends a couple times a week though.

I can also go to either one of the two art galleries in town. They showcase local artists, and I’ve seen some amazing artwork there. They occasionally host slam poetry nights, and those are always fun. I’ve made quite a few friends there.

The Public Square I mentioned is also where we had our “No Kings” protest, and it was honestly a blast. Food trucks pretty much surrounded the Square. I must have eaten 6000 calories that day, and at least 2000 of it was delicious lamb kabsa cooked up by the refugees we welcomed into our community a decade ago.

If you’re into nature, we’ve got a shit ton of hiking trails, like, you could hike a new (to you) trail every weekend for a couple years and not run out of trails. I like to go rock climbing, and there are a lot of rocks to climb out here. We’ve got a ton of cricks and lakes to swim in. You can go set up a tent in the woods, and camp for up to 7 days before the State Troopers ask you to move. And even then, you can just move a mile in any direction and you’re good for another week.

And that’s just things that are 100% free of charge. I can drop a few bucks and hang out in a pub, a cafe, the shisha bar, or a comedy club.

I know this one is not a solution for everyone, but I can also hang out at my local Polish American Citizen’s club. We have all sorts of fun events, and they’re all technically free as long as you pay your membership dues ($10/year). We had a pierogi eating contest last week, with a $500 prize. I didn’t win, but I had a great time eating 34 pierogi and it cost me nothing but my membership fee, which I happily pay every year. On regular days, when we’re not having an event, we play dominoes, checkers, cribbage, pinochle, and sometimes chess, but that’s not very popular because no one can beat Piotr, and he ends up basically “owning” the chess board if he’s there, since the winner doesn’t have to leave the table. Spending time with people from my own cultural background is very enjoyable, I always leave happy.

Another solution that is not gonna work for everyone: Getting involved in Church activities. My church has a men’s support group that I am heavily active in (They also have a women’s support group that my wife attends.). We go camping, we go fishing, we have a flag football league, an amateur baseball tournament, we play pool, ping-pong, air hockey, darts, and we host free community BBQs in the summer.

Sorry for the novel, but I am an American, and I have more “third places” than I can even make use of. When I lived in a more urban area, I had even more options. I’ve never lived in the suburbs, only urban (for the first 20 years of my life) and rural (for the past 31 years) areas. Is this specifically a suburban problem?

I think: actual straight people don’t exist, only self hating people who cling desperately to an imagined blood tribe.

Honestly, this is absurd. I’ve been on this Earth for over 50 years, I am a man, and I’ve never felt attracted to a man. I am straight. I exist. I don’t hate myself, I also don’t hate others for their sexuality. Let gay folks be gay, let lesbians be lesbians, let bisexuals be bisexual. I fully support trans folks. I am not against anything LGBT+. But I don’t fit any of those labels. I am a man, and I am only attracted to women. I don’t even understand how/why straight/bi women are attracted to men. I’m glad they are though.

You could offer me a billion dollars to fuck a man, and I just would not be able to do it. No man is making my dick hard. My sexual identity is just as valid as yours. Gay people exist. Bisexual people exist. Straight people exist. You can’t tell me I don’t exist. I am attracted to women exclusively. To be clear, that includes trans women, some of those women are really beautiful. Trans women are women.

“N***a, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?”

-Stringer Bell, “The Wire”.

I’m not the person you asked, but honestly, if Discord wants to monitor me and my homies talking about our nerdy ass video game shit, I don’t mind it at all. It’s not like I’m setting up heroin deals on there (or anywhere else). Like, I give a negative amount of fucks if they know that we’re gonna be hardcore raiding from 8pm to midnight on Tuesday and Thursday, with a training session for new members on Saturday morning from 7am to 10am. I could not care less if they read my chats about dungeon strategies and properly optimized endgame gear. If they want to see who won my weekly raffle for 1000 ingame gold, that’s fine by me.

It’s not even like they can use my data for marketing purposes. I play exactly one video game, and I already plan to buy every expansion the game releases until I either die, or the servers shut down. And we have a very strict “no politics” rule in my server, so it’s not like they’re gonna catch us planning some sort of revolution. We’re just some MMORPG nerds nerding out about our MMORPG.

If they ask me to scan my face, or send them a pic of my ID, that’s where I draw the line. I have never, and will never, put a picture of my face on the internet. I’ve never posted any pics of my kids, or my grandkids either.

But nothing I say on Discord is “private”, there are over 600 people on my server, all playing the same game. We only talk about the game, or occasionally what we had for dinner (but that’s only on Foodie Fridays). If Discord knows that I made wet beef sandwiches with loaded fries for dinner, that’s no sweat off my balls. I don’t have conversations on there about anything that I would be afraid to shout in the Public Square.

My phone bill is $40/mo no matter how much I use my phone.

I’ve been smoking pot since the 80’s, and every head shop I’ve ever been to sells the cap OP is looking for. You can even get them on Ebay.

You’re looking for this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394658009635

But honestly, just grab a glass bowl for $10-$20. It’s a better experience.

“Man, that sucks.”

“Man, that blows.”

Those two phrases have identical meanings.

I’m not “tech illiterate” by any means, but this whole federated thing took me a bit to get my head wrapped around.

I get it now, it’s basically just a bunch of content aggregators in a trench coat, and it doesn’t matter which one you sign up for.

It’s like signing up for Facebook, and getting access to Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and every other social media site in one place.

I only know who The Weeknd is because Cœur de Pirate did a cover of his song “Wicked Games”. It’s fucking hilarious to hear a French Canadian woman play the piano while singing “Let me see that ass, look at all this cash”. I’ve never heard the original version, and I don’t plan to.