Uniform? Check. Phone? Check. Jokes? Check. Nerves? Fuck ‘em. I take a quick breath, before turning the handle of Director Clavell’s door and carefully throwing it open, using just enough force for it not to slam into the wall. Clavell had gotten disappointed the last time it had chipped his paint, and that was far worse than anger, coming from him. Don’t call him Grandpa to his face, don’t call him Grandpa to his face. “Director Clavell!”
everyone on the undersiders but brian is lgbt but the diagram of how much knowledge everyone has about this fact is extremely complex. brian used to assume that everyone was straight. he thought rachel looked a bit dykesque but didn’t want to be homophobic so he assumed she was straight also. he felt a little embarrassed when he found out that she was a lesbian, and then proceeded to assume that everyone but rachel was straight with 2x the confidence of before. taylor assumes that everyone but rachel and alec is straight, including herself, despite being bisexual. her assumptions about rachel and alec are based on nothing material just her being homophobic. lisa is aware of everyone’s sexualities. she used to have alec tentatively pegged as gay and lying about it but then figured out he was just bisexual with every problem after she got a bit more data. she’s not actually trying to get taylor to realize she’s bisexual but likes poking at it sometimes anyway. rachel has literally never thought about anyone else’s sexuality before because she doesn’t give a shit but eventually assumes with utter confidence that taylor is bisexual. alec knows rachel is a lesbian and aisha and taylor are bisexual (“duh”) and has a pet theory he’s 33% sure about that lisa is secretly a lesbian with bad taste and that’s why she’s so nice to taylor and taylor only. aisha knows rachel is a lesbian and alec and taylor are bisexual but thinks his pet theory pertaining to lisa is insane and she’s straight, hence prompting her to make as many homoerotic and/or taylor/lisa shipping jokes at lisa’s expense as humanly possible. there will be a quiz on this yeah
you know what taylor might assume everyone is straight as well but the rest of this i still stand by. and this taylor notion could also be true could go either way perhaps
how is it that alec of all people knows the other'siders the best without having a thinker power to cheat
because it’s not that hard to notice when people you spend a lot of time around are gay when you’re gay and also not homophobic
also he spends a lot of time in social interactions sitting quietly and lethargically watching the conversation
i had a dream that time travel was invented and too many people choose to travel back in time to save the titanic from sinking (the question of whether unsinking of the titanic deserved so much attention in the face of human history was the subject of both heavy academic and online discourse), which caused a rift in the space-time-continuum that led to the titanic showing up indiscriminately all over the world’s oceans and sea in various states of sinking.
this caused a lot of issues both in terms of fixing said space-time-continuum and in terms of nautical navigation, and after a long and heavy battle in the international maritime organization it was decided that the bureaucratic burden of dealing with this was to be upon Ireland, much to their dismay. the Irish Government then released an app for all sailors and seafarers so they could report titanic sightings during their journeys, even though they heavily dissuaded you from reporting them given the paperwork it caused.
anyway i woke up with a clear image of the app in my head and needed to recreate it for all of you:
no you don’t understand. i do international regulation of emerging technologies for a living. this WAS me stress dreaming about work
hey when you make posts, i just want you to know, thou/thee/thy/thine/ye are like he/you(object)/your/yours/you(subject) okay? “thou art wearing shoes,” “i will wear shoes for thee,” okay?
you say thine if the next word starts with a vowel and thy if the next word starts with a consonant and they both mean “your” so “thine own shoes,” “thy shoes,” okay?
and ye means you and refers to the subject of a sentence, “ye members of the brotherhood of shoes,” okay? you need this information to create better knight yaoi. i’m personally more interested in nun yuri but we are a community
i like working at plant store. sometimes you ring up someone and there’s a slug on their plant and so you’re like “Oh haha you’ve got a friend there let me get that for you” and you put the slug on your hand for safekeeping but then its really busy and you dont have time to take the slug outside before the next customer in line so you just have a slug chilling on your hand for 15 minutes. really makes you feel at peace with nature. also it means sometimes i get to say my favorite line which is “would you like this free slug with your purchase”
@holyknuckled you get it. lterally what are we here on earth for if not to occasionally impose gastropods upon unsuspecting customers. this story is delightful
Dressing entirely in silver and black, it occurred to me that it’d be fun and cool if someone was doing the opposite of that - scavenging thrift shops for everything in white and gold, to put them together in gothy/alt/punk style, same shape but more glam.
Then the devil on my shoulder pointed out that I could do that. Once I run out of my regular clothes that I could mod, I could build one whole white+gold outfit and have a Secret Shiny Version of me to wear on special occasions.
Do blue and black outfits, and white and gold versions of the exact same outfit, and insist to people that you haven’t changed clothes
I feel like in the rush of “throw out etiquette who cares what fork you use or who gets introduced first” we actually lost a lot of social scripts that the younger generations are floundering without.
A lot of tough situations where we now feel like we “don’t know what to do or say” had social scripts just a couple of generations ago and they might have been canned phrases or robotic actions but they could still be meant sincerely and unfortunately we haven’t replaced them with any more sincere or easier new script.
a lot of people are giving examples in the notes of things they just find annoying like not using headphones in public, but OP is talking about actual literal scripts of things to say in awkward situations
if you have a date or two with someone and you don’t see a relationship developing? most millennials / gen Zers just end up ghosting. but a social script that might have been taught and rehearsed in the past could be:
“I really appreciated getting dinner with you the other night and I enjoyed your company, but I’m afraid I didn’t feel a spark. I wish you the best, and hope you find that special someone!”
like it sounds kind of trite but it was at least something to say and it can still be meant with kind sincerity. it also communicates in 2 sentences that you don’t want to see them romantically again, but there aren’t any hard feelings about that. that’s it!!! that’s all it takes!!!
Another example is that at parties a lot of people talk about how awkward it is to mingle or talk to people they dont know. But at old timey parties that was traditionally the HOST’S job, and there was a specific scripted way of doing it that eased the process! The host would bring you in, introduce you and maybe even a little bit about you like what you did for a living, and then guide you to a group you could talk to. They didn’t just let you in the door and then ditch you to fend for yourself in a sea of strangers. That would be unthinkable and no one would be surprised if a get-together like that wound up being awkward.
I still do the party-host thing and yall can, too! (Thanks Mad Men for teaching me a lot of outmoded social scripts… no really tho)
Remember things about your friends! Ask people about their weekends, hobbies, holidays, studies, and jobs! Listen for the concerns people have and what they are working on! Draw connections between one person and another to get the ball rolling. “Oh, Maura, you just got your first cat! You should talk to Felix, he used to work at a rescue. Felix, please tell Maura all the new-cat-guardian pointers.”
“Bill, Sheila, Xan, this is my friend Kale. Kale is really into Star Trek, Bill you and them should talk about it!”
Orrr whatever! After you make the introduction and draw the connection you just float on into the next interaction with someone else at the function. Just listen, care about your friends, get our of your own head, and think of how you can bring other people together and you will feel 100% less awkward.
hi i am so excited about this post because i have posted this exact thing MANY times on here, often in the specific context of how formal etiquette is so useful for autistic people especially, but also for everyone. even if you come off a little bit formal, which you will sometimes, having Old School Manners (or just knowing what they are) for various common scenarios is like having a magic ticket that will just sail you through all kinds of social iinteractions, gatekeeping, social weirdness, and as is pointed out in the above posts about introducing people to each other, can make you into a really valuable and helpful person for an entire gathering or group of people.
i also want to point out that knowing what the polite thing to do in all situations makes you a lot more effective at being rude and obnoxious when the situation calls for it, which is also a valuable and necessary adult skill
I need to think about this properly, but I posted a while ago about how we did present practice once (roleplayed various ways to receive presents with the kids, practicing different social scripts). I am comfortable in my position that this is a perfectly reasonable game to teach children, and that the skills received are useful in life. I heard from a lot of people saying this was a good idea, and a few people who hated it because it was “training the kids to be artificial”, “not genuine,”etc.
One person in particular really felt passionately about how abusive this game was. It was abusing the children, they wrote to me, and as a neurodiverse person they felt such social expectations were violently oppressive.
I felt like there was more to it, like their reaction was really about something else, so i went to their blog, and they had a lot of posts about how they are autistic and used a mobility aid and service animal. All of these presented challenges. They obviously had a lot going on in their life, none of which is to do with my family, but what got me was their venting about people interacting with them, their service animal and their mobility aid.
“People look at my service animal all the time,” they said angrily.
“Parents, teach your children IN PRIVATE about my mobility aid, not out loud where I can hear it.”
“Children bump into me in public. Nobody is teaching them to accommodate disabled people.”
“Children are overstimulating to me. There should be areas where children don’t go if they can’t behave properly, or if they’re too young for that, if their parents can’t control them.”
“I shouldn’t be expected to accomodate other people in public. People have to accommodate me.”
So I realised: okay, there’s a massive disconnect here, and it’s nothing to do with me.
But more broadly, on this website, people do appreciate that a well-behaved adult is someone who can accomodate other people. Well-behaved children and nicely-trained adults don’t pet service animals. Respectful people are conscious of how to give space to people with canes. Polite people wait for others to finish sentences. People with good manners behave graciously with minor inconveniences, even if they don’t want to. If a human being is a bundle of “natural impulses” then a person with additional training can control those. A human with reasonable social training can politely control their impulses to pet animals, make loud comments, and stare at things that are different.
This person was quite reasonable in their genuine belief that other people should accommodate their needs. And they’re right! People genuinely should be doing more for them - calculating how much space they need, yielding it graciously, and sensitively picking up on the fact that they could use patience, attention, space, and accommodation. This person and their service animal should be treated with more respect and better manners everywhere they go!
But all of that is training. To get everyone to do that involves teaching behaviours that are considered “polite” and explaining how “natural” impulses aren’t always polite. It’s a process of education, it isn’t innate to the animal, and someone has to do it. It’s usually taught in childhood, often by parents. You could, perhaps, make it fun though.
how it feels to be in your 20s and getting sent TikTok videos from your friends but you don’t have a TikTok and it just redirects you to the Apple download page for it.
