For me it’s driving while under the influence. If you couldn’t tell, I like me some ganja. However I have long since held the belief that it is utterly insane to drive while under the influence of most substances, with maybe nicotine and caffeine being the exception. All too often I see other stoners smoking and driving, which I simply can’t fathom. I’ve only operated a vehicle once under the influence and it was just to move a U-Haul around the block to a different parking spot, which was such a scary experience while high that I refuse to even consider getting behind the wheel again while high.
Car culture constantly being irreversibly intertwined with a bunch of right wing redneck bullshit. Its so pervasive that I have to actively avoid most social media car content because it will inevitably contain or be filled with comments of “FJB”, “cry about it liberal”, “Trump 2024”, and repeats of 500 anti gay/trans statements that have literally nothing to do with cars. And if I subscribe to any of it on a mainstream platform, my entire recommended feed instantly gets filled with a bunch of Andrew Tate chud sexism content and a constant barrage of other nazified political spam.
I’m here cause I like things on wheels with vroom engine, not your political pisstakes. Christ. I can barely even go to local car meets either because almost all of the boomers that gatekeep such events can’t get 3 words out of their mouth without jumping into a Great Replacement conspiracy. Fuck my life this hobby is a hellhole.
As a result I mostly keep to myself, drive my little shitboxes out in the forest, and work on a couple Goofy ahh engine swap projects without talking to anyone else.
And yes, I’m calling gonna call them a racist if they think the confederate flag belongs on the roof of an orange 1969 Dodge Charger (or on the front license plate cover of Generic Pickup Truck #99,412). I don’t give a shit that Dukes of Hazzard was a car culture classic. Get fucked lol.
I feel your pain, I’m a trans woman and cars and motorcycles have been my hobby since I was a teenager but I avoid most car meets like the plague. The import scene seems to be a lot better than the classic and muscle car scenes but there’s still a fair bit of right-wing bs. I do find it hilarious when I roll up somewhere in my classic jeep and notice some maga chud oogling it, the look on their faces when I step out is priceless.
Oh yeah I feel a weird version of this, ugh. See, I’m a big fan of going places and I like complicated mechanical toys and I guess I actually know a lot of deep down details about cars especially after a year or so stint doing car-related tech things, but I’m also an environmentalist who hates cars.
So, like, goofy engine swap projects, actually racing the damn sports car, actually taking the SUV off road to see something cool, details required to engineer a V12 sports car that doesn’t spin out, et al are all interesting to me but then literally everything to do with car culture seems like folks who are driving their super-fancy tuned vehicle in a traffic jam wasting gas spouting right wing BS.
This was explained to me as being a car person vs a “car person” by a friend who mentioned what giant douchebags car people are, in a group chat with her best friends who are extreme car nerds.
I know it’s getting into a sort of strawman/“No True Scotsman” realm, but I’ve definitely noticed it at a lot of car meets unfortunately. There are a lot of people who are very much attracted purely to the idea that “fast loud vroom car will make me attractive as a person”, and those tend to be the assholes who buy a $100k sports car that they won’t even take to a local autocross, and will use it solely to terrorize people in surrounding neighborhoods.
On the other hand, there are people who get excited seeing basically any interesting car. It doesn’t matter if it’s slow and cheap and isn’t flashy, it’s just a unique car and that should always be exciting to see.
My stepfather very much falls into the 1st category, and going to Woodward (absolutely massive car show/cruise in Detroit) was absolutely painful. He would shit on basically every car that went by, and on the rare occasion a flashy supercar drove by, would be like “I bet my car is just as fast”. He’s had multiple very nice sports cars, and I’ve invited him numerous times to autocross/track events, but he refuses it every time questioning why he’d want to. He’d much rather be an idiot doing 3x the speed limit on backroads than just take it to any one of the many nearby track events. Absolute numpty
I imagine going to a track for someone like your stepfather is a rather vulnerable experience. Odds are higher that he might run into someone with a better car than his compared to just toodling around back roads.
Oh, for sure. Likely, it’s not even going to be a “better” car, it’s going to be a much slower car, but with a better driver. That would be even more galling, to have his flashy sports car passed by some dude in a Miata.
Yeah, like, we’ve got a fairly nice sporty-ish sedan that’s approaching 300k and since we’ve only got one car we kinda have to be ready to buy a new one quickly, I’ve done some of the thought process based on our needs and where we are in life. And the thing is, I like a nice car but I’m unclear on exactly how nice of a car I would actually appreciate driving, given that I don’t like to die or hurt other people, so I’m not going to go 3x the speed limit on some backroad and have never gotten a speeding ticket just that the upgrade from a 1.8L engine ecomony-ish sedan to a 2.5L engine sporty-ish sedan did feel real nice.
Meanwhile, one in-law got a Porsche so another in-law on the same side of the family had to trade in his Audi SUV for roughly the same SUV on the Porsche side and it’s all some douchebag power fantasy.
But, yeah, I like seeing actual-car-persons nerd out because I know enough to get at what they are nerding out about. Joy is much funner than douchebaggery.
This is why I got OUT of the scene. It’s a car. Chill with all the hot takes bruh. I just want to have fun with people that know about cars.
That’s a really fascinating, if depressing insight. I’ve long wondered what it’s like for “normal” (nah, fuck it, just normal) people in subcultures with so much baggage.
Try being someone on the liberal side of the political spectrum who is primarily into the history and engineering of firearms, rather than the power fantasy of “gubmint and libruls better fear muh guns”.
It’s an absolute hellscape and it’s extremely disheartening to start talking with someone and sharing in a common interest, then seeing “FJB” and 1488 bumper stickers. I refuse to let bigots ruin my hobby though, and make an effort to make the hobby as inclusive as possible.
I also feel that being into planes. Lockheed Martin and the military industrial complex can get fucked, i just like it when they fly around and do cool stuff.
Sounds rotten :-(
It definitely sucks, but there are an increasing number of people like Ian of Forgotten Weapons getting people interested for the same reasons I am, really only getting into the politics from the historical or design perspectives, and always in a very objective manner. I’m also now in a far more liberal area and the local ranges are very inclusive, so that helps immensely.
I love working on my car and taking it to meets and shows, but I have a hard time finding friends in the community for exactly this reason.
same with motorcycles!
oh man, some “biker dudes” are the worst dude bros in all mankind. And it’s like they take pride in committing felony moving traffic violations…
I don’t know you, but I love you.
Check out the honda insight forum, they’re pretty chill over there.
I’ve got a few other places I can shoot shit with people who know some about my daily driver/project car maintenance and have largely avoided the bigoty shit, largely due to my low bullshit tolerance and gender identity lol
One of my hobbies is the social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower. Heavy social deduction games will draw certain types of people. Many of the people are very nice and inclusive. Others not so much.
I just played a game with a new group the other night - games usually take about 90 minutes in my experience. These people are all about playing super optimally rather than having fun. I made a sub-optimal play as an evil character, solely to create chaos. This led to mass confusion toward the end of the game. When my play was revealed at the end, people were literally yelling at me.
No one cared that it worked, and evil won, and that I completely followed the rules. I just did something no one would expect because I knew it would cause confusion. Some people take all the fun out of the game.
Well that sucks. My favourite moment in a hidden role game was when a player won by misreading their card and convincing both of us that we were allies at the start. They ended up the only evil player for most of the game and then in the last round after we’d worked together to systematically kill everyone else (all weirdly innocents, we were both feeling guilty by this point), when they finally realised they knew there was no evil player they checked and… killed me. Total madness and a glorious victory for them. How can you be mad at that?!
This is really dumb imo (the other people). My friend and I both like to be agents of chaos sometimes, so when we play Secret Hitler it’s a nightmare because even if we’re not on the same team we just cause so much mayhem and have everyone doubting everything. Isn’t the fun in the chaos and confusion???
In most social deduction games, the point of the minority team is to create confusion, since they have all the information. The majority team is trying to deduce roles, so they benefit from players who telegraph their strategy.
Jesus, what a bunch of freaks those people sound.
I mean, set aside that you outsmarted them with an unexpected move, but, oh no, you mean the evil side didn’t do things by the book?? Who’da thunk it?
Even my own team was pissed at me because my move was super risky. But because I could see the way people were expecting optimal play, I figured it would work in our favor.
One person said, “WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO FUCKING STUPID? YOU THREW YOUR OWN TEAM UNDER THE BUS”
Yeah, but it worked cuz nobody expected anybody would do such a crazy move.
Exactly - really glad it worked out, especially if that’s how the others are going to react! :-)
I’ve got quite the game collection, and that kind of competitive behavior annoys the hell out of me.
If I’m learning a game, I stumble along, take my turns, and figure out how everything works as we go through the process. I don’t expect to win, and if I do, it’s probably because I got some lucky rolls/draws.
I have a few friends/family that get angry when they aren’t winning, and nothing pisses me off during a game more than that.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated with a bad draw, or when someone has the perfect counter in their hand, but, if your enjoyment of the game is solely determined by how much you’re winning, you’re ruining it for everyone else and you aren’t getting invited to the next game night.
Yeah. Even my own team was pissed at me. I took a risky move that worked out in the end because I used their weakness against them. That’s part of the reason that BotC is so much better than many social deduction games - it’s often not entirely solvable, even with optimal play. And just let people have fun sometimes, who cares about making the “objectively best decision” at all times.
My nerd herd play this game too, the usual suspects are getting to the point where I worry that will be the problem. Right now the main irritation are meme accusations. 2 players dont trust eachother even if prove they are on the same team.
Lieing about being someones grandmother and randomly guessing a role (and getting it right) has ended multiple games. Its gotten to the point we have to just treat some people as agents of chaos even if they arnt on the evil team. Its still very fun and most people get a laugh out of a good play.
I turned the spent fisherman in between the vigor and assassin into the empath in my game. Not a single person believed the spent fish would suddenly get a 2 empath reading. They got read as a minion panicking in final three when the raven keeper was on the block lol.
I was pretty proud of the psych out play.
My recent claim to fame from this past weeks game, winning our groups first psychopath script. I got to play Patrick Bateman and didnt do anything for 3 turns (Our GM kept calling me crazy) because my demon (the Al-hadihkia) handed me the flower girl as a bluff. Convinced the town fool, who had validated their role worked in front of everyone, that I was above board and proceded to axe the philosopher on the last day to win the game for the evil team. The fool still owes me a beer or sandwich.
I’ve never gotten psycho yet, which makes me sad. It looks like so much fun to play.
I think playing as a minion is the most fun, demons are too stressful and outsiders usually mean your paranoid or intentionally throw yourself under the bus for the good team.
Some of the most fun I’ve had has been playing the Baron. Just getting to sew as much discord as possible early game, and if I die? Oh well. I once managed to get into 3 double claims on day one and somehow didn’t get executed till day 3 lol.
I used to play a lot of TTT (for those who don’t know, think Among Us, but its an FPS where anyone can shoot anyone else) and this is what ruined it for me. In the rare occasions where I could get together a group of friends, it was fine, but any attempt to play online was just endless squabbles. Everyone was constantly whining about if X peice of evidence was ligitimate enough to act on, and God-forbid anyone do anything that actually broke a rule, regardless of how fun or funny.
I used to play that with friends, but I knew playing with randoms would be toxic. Glad to know I didn’t miss an opportunity lol
Chaos moves are so much fun.
When a friend and I play Coup (hidden role card game), we’ll typically start out playing normally - especially if there are new players - but as things progress, we get into “advanced” strategies. We might not look at our cards at all, and publicly proclaim it, such that nobody can possibly know if we’re BSing or not - since we don’t know ourselves.
My old group loved to do a few blind rounds of coup after we were ready to move onto another game. Made for chaos and great fun for everyone. That was usually our warm up game - still waiting for people to show up, maybe snacks were still being prepared, Hosts walking the dog, etc.
But of course, first round, EVERYONE is a Duke.
Looks like evil won and then some. ‘evil laugh’.
This is why I get anxious playing with new groups, especially because if I draw a token that let’s me try something out of left field, I can rarely resist going for it. Thankfully, so far everyone has been really excellent, but it takes me a while to slip in and get comfortable
This is a great game, people are constantly surprising you
Unplanned amputations.
I’m a woodworker.
Table saws are serious shit.
Have a coworker who taught me all he knows bout woodworking.
Have heard way too many times “X is for pussies”. Saw guards, riving knives, splitters. “Real men use Radial Arm Saws.”
Is that why you lost function in 3 of your fingers? To prove you are a real man? Well slap my ass, and call me Sally because I like having all my fingers.
Carpenter here. I used to get called a pussy by the old dudes all the time. Maybe Jethro, but I’ve been doing this as long as you have and I have all my fingers still and you can only count to 8 if you take off a shoe.
you can only count to 8 if you take off a shoe.
lol I love this. I wonder if they lost 7 fingers, or some combination of fingers and toes.
I think it means they lost 3 or more fingers
But if they took off a shoe with 3 missing fingers they could count to 12! 😛
And is stupid enough to need fingers to get to ten.
That’s actually a perfect retort “You’re such a pussy using the guard Zagami!” “Really Jethro? Do me a favor, take your shoe off and count to ten.”
A razor sharp 10 inch circular saw blade being spun at 5,500 RPM by an 18 amp motor doesn’t care how manly you are.
I worked in a woodshop for a bit too. The story I told new kids is that the band saw a was originally used in butchershops to cut beef sides till a woodworker thought it would make a nifty hobby tool. And that saw wants nothing more than to explore it’s roots and get back to its raison d’être of slicing meat into more manageable sized chunks. And you better believe that table saw over there isn’t going to be shown up by some hobby tool.
The band saw is deceptively safe. It’s a fairly quiet and gentle sounding tool, it doesn’t push back on you like a circular saw does, it won’t kick back, it’s too easy to stop being scared of it.
It does.
Because if it’s low enough it can change it very easily (and potentially for the rest of your life)
Fingers are INTEGRAL. Sapphic safety 101
Another hobby, though I haven’t been in a few years is SCUBA diving. I learned how to dive under people who took all of the safety limits and procedures quite seriously. I was always diving in a pair with a person I knew, and we always had a comfort level of communication and teamwork based on familiarity with each other.
I left that constant diving life, and later to scratch the diving itch I decided to go do a recreational dive in the US. I showed up to the place and got on the boat. On the ride out to the dive site, I was expecting a pre-dive meeting where details would be gone over, and I’d be assigned my partner so we could interact at least a little bit before getting in the water. That never happened. I was waiting and waiting for the meeting to start when the boat just stopped, the people running it announced we were at the dive spot and just started pointing to pairs of people to be “partners” basically as they were jumping off the boat. I’m used to doing an equipment shakedown with a partner, but my assigned partner was some guy who just hopped in the depths and was gone before I could do any of that.
This was a simple dive to a flat sand bottom. People were mostly looking for trinkets down there. That said, the lack of organization was shocking. When time was up, people just started shooting to the surface. Nobody else was doing safety stops on the way up, and because of me doing it I was the last person out of the water. It was very scary sloppy and I did not go back to any open-to-the-public recreational dives after that.
Thats terrifying, especially given that the ocean is potentially more dangerous than space. the power of water is not to be underestimated
It was really scary. I’d shadowed some recreational groups before to help out with the shop I’d been close with and a reoccurring theme would be that customers who dived for maybe one week a year were so caviler about safety because they were “very experienced”, while the people who dived so much they were having to calculate their weekly limits were abundantly respectful of the depths.
As one person working there would say, “You never get a brain aneurysm until you do.”
Can you explain what the weekly limit is about? I know very little about scuba.
There’s a lot of biology involved that I don’t understand the intricacies of, but basically the more time and at more depth you are underwater the more your body is dealing with changes in the density and makeup of your blood. You need time on the surface to normalize. For a similar reason you need to do safety stops to allow your body to adjust to the changes.
For normal recreation dives, it’s pretty simple that people are limited to (IIRC) two dives/two hours per day as a general guideline. Once you get into deeper dives, using different breathing mixes, and other stuff people have to start doing a little bit of double checking to make sure they don’t overdo it.
I’m not sure about the weekly limit, but I guess it has also to do with the absorbtion of nitrogen into your blood, which is why you make safety stops after going deep and why there are daily limits.
Depending on how deep and how long you dive, more nitrogen will get dissolved in your blood due to the increased pressure. It stays there until you get into lower pressure ( ascending to the surface). If you do that too fast, the nitrogen will build up bubbles. And bubbles in the bloodstream is really really bad, hindering the flow of blood. Doing safety stops in lower depths gives some nitrogen the time to leave your body through the lungs while breathing. Not diving for a certain time after your dive sessions will give time to release all additional nitrogen from the blood, preventing a builtup over each dive.
How deep was the dive? Thinking that these guys do these dives regularly without ever doing safety stops is giving me decompression sickness by proxy
I honestly don’t remember. It wasn’t notably deep, but I had 100% of the time always done a safety stop and a controlled ascent in all my dives. The part that made this especially bad was people would go absolutely flying from the bottom to the top, with no attempt to control their speed.
My ears are very sensitive, that shit would burst my ears. In a normal swimming pool, I would still need to equalize.
Was this ran by a PADI Dive center? I feel like if it was an official dive center they would be more rigorous and Divemasters would be helping you out.
No, I was used to PADI and certified by them (outside the U.S.). The place where I had the bad experience was affiliated with some U.S. organization I wasn’t familiar with.
PADI is international, I feel like most reputable dive shops need to be PADI certified.
I know. Like I said the shop had a US only organization I wasn’t familiar with and it was my first experience with recreational U.S. diving, which is why I specified.
I showed up in the U.S. expecting PADI, but being unfamiliar with how U.S. shops operated, and presumed that whatever non-PADI organization they were with would be similarly standardized. Clearly they weren’t. Which is why I didn’t go back.
Interesting, I live in the US and I didn’t know there are different scuba organizations other than PADI and SSI, and NAUI. I would be sussed out at that dive center. I’m sorry you had to experience that.
With airsoft, it has to be the fascination with using lasers. There’s no such thing as a totally eyesafe laser, just “less harmful ones” and I know that many of the ultra cheap lasers on places like aliexpress are totally lying about their ratings, using lower rating stickers on more powerful lasers. Which is a problem as it’s easier to make a brute force amped up laser when you want something bright to appeal to airsofters. The teens buying these lasers have no idea what laser ratings are in the first place anyway, they just buy whatever appeals to their Call Of Duty addled brains.
In addition to being inherently unsafe, which is full stop reason enough, lasers tend to be pretty useless especially in outdoor games. It is very annoying to be in the woods and randomly get swept by a lasers from somebody far away who doesn’t even know where I am. I have literally heard people explain that they find where the laser is pointed by looking for it with their magnified scope. Which is completely insane logic.
When the topic comes up, laser users claim that they never aim at peoples’ eyes. In a game, that’s a completely impossible promise to keep. Also some people do intentionally aim lasers at faces for an advantage, and since it’s impossible to avoid this whole mess, lasers should be banned entirely.
(And before anyone mentions the laserbox on my airsoft gun, it’s fake. It’s a hollow box where I keep the gun’s battery for easy access.)
This is a really interesting one i think for the reasons you pointed out above. There is very little safety oversight for this and these people genuinely have no clue how to actually use laser aiming systems. Not to mention that if you have a laser, it should be set up such that you don’t need to look for it (especially not with a scope that’s mounted parallel to the laser) because it’s to help your fine aim. Oh well, i was young and thought tacticool stuff was cool once too.
A lot of the tacticool is just dumb and awkward; that’s sort of just good fun LARPing nonsense. Some poor choices like not wearing mouth protection are flatly stupid, but at least it only punishes the person making the choice. My problem with lasers is that the person making the dumb choice isn’t affected, only people otherwise doing everything right.
I’ve actually asked a few fields about implementing no laser policies, but unfortunately owners seem apathetic about having to enforce it.
There are these amazing laser based aiming systems out there called “red” “dots”. They have the advantage of being better AND not flashing people in the eye.
exactly!
In photography, its overemphasis on the importance of gear. While it’s true that some shots require specific equipment, the average photographer will not improve with better equipment, and an experienced photographer can take brilliant shots with a phone.
You can’t buy skill. It comes with practice.
One of my exes did photography, first as a hobby, then did some weddings and stuff. He went to a class to learn more, and a lot of the more experienced people gave him shit because his camera was “basic”. It was a Canon or Nikon DSLR. Sure nothing amazing or super expensive, but he knew how to use it and no one ever complained about his photos they paid for.
People in any hobby that requires equipment draws these people. There were a couple cool people I met that he made friends with though. They had nicer gear, but weren’t assholes about it. Let him try them out and taught him about the benefits and use cases and stuff too.
People who gatekeep like that just scream insecurity to me.
Imagine being an asshole to someone who either chooses not or can’t afford to, buy very expensive equipment. Utterly pathetic.
this is the vibe im getting too. i just started with photography and am taking a digital still photography class and got a D300 for cheap. My lens is meh and i can’t do everything i want with it, but I’ve been able to take better photos than i ever have been before with a camera a decade plus old.
Good for you! The class will help more than a better lens. Learn to stay within the limits of your lens for now, rather than trying to fight it into situations it can’t capture. Think about the light before looking for a composition. Digital photography has the advantage of being able to take unlimited pictures at no cost, so think, shoot, review, and learn. Most importantly, enjoy it!
Oh, and always keep your camera with you. lol
Thank you, i appreciate the advice! i do think about light a lot, and the first settings i change when getting a good photo are the white balance and exposure. i definitely need more practice overall but im enjoying it enough that i brought my camera case with me today instead of my backpack
Nice! While you’re walking with your bag, make note of good shots with undesirable sun position and try to return when the sun is where you want it. There are some really useful apps that will let you track the sun’s path using AR. They’ll also tell you when to find both golden hours every day.
oh perfect! thank you!
I’m in a Facebook group for my camera, and it’s full of these people. Every other post seems to be telling newbies that they need to upgrade the camera and lens, or every photo will be awful. They treat buying a more expensive camera as an upgrade, no matter how good the photographer is, or what they’re shooting.
I’ve grown a lot over the years through criticism of my photos, not my equipment. Try to find photographers you trust to be honest with you, and ask them what they think of your shots. Criticism of gear is just simply noise.
You’ll know when you need a new lens once you find yourself limited by the capability of your first. Cant get the low-light shots you want without ISO noise? Look into wider aperture lenses. Want to capture the birds you see every morning across the lake? Maybe a telephoto zoom. Need something discrete for city-life shots? Pancake prime time.
The lens bug can bite hard. Try to let your desired shots dictate your next lens, not the sale at B&H or Andromeda, and definitely not Facebook trolls.
I think this is what’s going to drive me the most for a new lens. I’m a night owl and I wanna do more night photography, but my aperture only goes down to 3.5 (i think) at 18 mm and if i use any focal length above that I’m pretty much limited to 5.6. Not terrible by any means but i have to spend a lot of time manually playing with the exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and meter before I get the shot I want. But I’m not experienced enough to know what I’m doing wrong yet so a new lens will have to wait until I know I’m actually being limited by my lens and not my skill.
Sure. Kit telephotos typically have a variable aperture (f/3.5-5.6). You may need use of a tripod for crisp low-light shots with one. Over time, make note of your most commonly used focal length. When it comes time for a lens, check out prime lenses in that focal length. They’re fixed lenses (no zoom), but they have the advantage of much larger apertures, and are typically sharper. You can usually get a “nifty fifty” (50mm f/1.8) from most manufacturers relatively inexpensively. It’ll really expand your low-light options.
I’ll keep that in mind, thank you! i appreciate the advice!
No problem. Feel free to hit me up if you have a question. Even if I don’t have the answer, I might be able to point you in the right direction. Always down to help a fellow photographer.
The “macho” attitude to safety. From soldering to woodworking. In soldering, there are fumes created when burning a substance called flux. There are commercial fumes extractors to purify and remove these fumes, but many refuse to use them, even if they’re cheap. Saying stuff like "What’s a little tree sap gonna do to me?. Chances are, none of them could run a mile due to the irritation of their lungs.
Another one is woodworking, especially around power tools. Table saws can shred your fingers before you can blink. It can pull extremities towards itself, and can launch wood fast enough to perforate organs. Yet there are still people who insist “I don’t need no push stick”, “don’t bother with a crosscut sled, just free hand it”.
Motorcycle riders not wearing a helmet be like
D&D and RPGs in general. There’s a lot of loud opinions on what other people are doing.
Yeah, go ahead Simon - teach me the right way to pretend I’m an elf.
DnD is definitely one of those hobbies where each table is different and (as long as no one is being hurt) none of them are wrong. The toxicity some people bring to the table can scare away newer people entirely and that sucks for everyone. Less DnD people means we all get to play less DnD.
Queer TTRPG circles on the west coast got this fixed. I can never go back to playing in Completely straight TTRPG culture. Queer TTRPG tables will be like “Can I be a Merperson Paladin of like… Everything spiritual simultaneously and just have to fluidly sync with the nearest divinity while my hyper intelligent mouse sidekick who dresses in a Sherlock Holmes outfit causes random trouble? Oh and can the mermish language be a sign language? " and 9/10 times the answer is " FUCK YEAH! That’s rad! Do you want your mouse to have a tiny magnifying glass?”
Compare that with the grognards telling me sign languages are prohibited because they are " too much of an advantage" and I am just ruined.
I recommend trying to find chill roleplay heavy groups. The tables i ran were never explicitly queer but we were open to anyone who wanted to come and have fun. It was helped by the fact that the regulars at the table would roleplay in character super heavily, but never take themselves too seriously, so it always just ends in stupid shenanigans where everyone’s laughing.
We once had a young kid (<10) at the table with their guardian and when they got the final hit on a difficult encounter the entire table erupted in cheers.
I have guns. I’m also super liberal. The amount of range patrons, employees or gun shops that talk unprompted about politics to me is disgusting. They just can’t understand there are liberal or left leaning gun owners.
I generally don’t get people like that. Starting a conversation with a stranger about polarizing topics like politics or religion is just high risk low benefit gamble.
I prefer to start conversations at the range with “ya ever tried riding a dick while high?” It really kickstarts things.
Rage stacking lol
Step 1: work less & join range Step 2: ask dudes about their preferred dildo manufacturers 2a. Wink wink, suggest tentacles
Especially when you know for a fact said stranger is armed.
Yup. Super off-putting. More than half of my local shops all have massive trump banners and associated ephemera along with some form of lib-bashing. Can’t be in that space for more than 5 minutes without hearing some fake news, racism, or mockery of some group. It’s really killing the sport for me. It never mattered when I first got into it, but the identity politics are destroying just enjoying a good day a the range.
It’s like they believe gun ownership is some kind of underground club that is impossible to be a part of unless your republican.
I have a pile of hobbies and I guess one common thread is obnoxious dude shit. And I say this as a male type person.
3D printing is a weird one because 3D printers are hella good for all kinds of stuff, from the more “femme” coded hobbies to the “dude” hobbies. But somehow the not-male people I know engage with some of the same communities as I do and for some reason I always get a lot more useful answers to my questions. There’s a certain aesthetic to homebrew open source 3D printers and it’s kinda industrial.
Electronics hackery is worse because it’s a lot more “masc” coded. Even software stuff isn’t quite as bad because at least there there’s been concerted social pressure.
Photography is sad because if I work with a female model I have to go through a whole process for her to make sure that she’s going to be safe during our shoot, some of which I didn’t even fully realize that was part of the process for a while. And pretty much all of the semi-pro-to-pro experienced models have at least one story and sometimes Names Are Named and it’s someone I’ve met, so I have to be constantly on guard.
oh shit yeah i feel you with realizing things you do as habit really are learned because of shitty things that have happened to people.
I knew a few women that played airsoft at a local field I used to play at, who made a habit of wolf-packing around the field in 2s and 3s. I asked them at one point how they learned to coordinate so well, and it turned out that they had to institute an actual buddy system because some players (long since banned from the local community) decided to get handsy with one of them at one point…and got a broken arm for his trouble.
jesus its terrible they had to go to that extent for their safety
You know, we have a word for “male-type person”: its man. It doesn’t matter if you are not a biological man, or in some kind of transitional stage, or whatever else might be the cause for this awkward phrasing. It is simply how this is called and it isnt discriminatory, you can use it. Also, a “female model” might well be referred to as a woman. That’s not discriminatory either.
Thinking new people are stupid for asking the same questions they asked 3 years ago. My hobby is every hobby.
well put. “New people don’t know enough” shouldn’t be a surprise, and yet here we are. Online forums should have a FAQ, at least (many do but not all).
The bikepacking community sometimes feels more like a gear flaunting contest than a fun outdoor sport. Particularly amusing are 90kg men obsessing over a 10kg bike to save weight.
Mountainbiking in general. I bought a used rocky mountain slayer. I asked the guy why he sold it, because it was like new. He explained me that he liked the bike, but it’s not good for climbing because it’s too heavy, and showed off his new bike. I looked it up when i was back home and he bought a 8k dollar bike that was 900 grams lighter.
I know a guy who bought an 10k dollar ebike because of how light it was. He’s like a 90kg man as well. He doesn’t even really ride it. He also bought some carvon rims for it to shave of a few grams. Bro, lose some weight and save some cashI mean if the seller is still big into it and his mass is mostly compromised of non-fat body mass I can see how shaving of 1kg of weight for a hike of 5km can be worth it.
Probably the cheapest and easiest way for most people to get into bike camping is by getting a trailer instead of obsessing over squeezing everything you need on the bicycle itself. I imagine some folks would consider that “cheating” but fuck 'em.
i really want to get into backpacking but I don’t have a car to travel and the gear is so expensive. it seems interesting. thank you for your perspective
There’s a town a few hours from here and I’m certain that some people drive there with all their gear, then ride around town all kitted up, and drive all the way back to the city.
“All the gear, no idea”.
This applies to pretty much every hobby or interest I’ve had. It describes people who start a new thing, and immediately go out and buy “the best” equipment, which they do not have the aptitude to use.
For example, a few years ago I started kayaking, and joined a local club which has kit hire available for most kit, especially the expensive bits (kayaks, paddles, helmets, paddles). Kit hire is insanely cheap, literally £1 an item per day, so you’d need to hire a kayak hundreds or thousands of times for it to be cheaper to buy your own boat. Hiring also allows you to play around with loads of different makes, models, and shapes of boat to find what works for you.
When new people join the club they have two intro sessions, in which, in a purposefully stable boat, best case scenario, they do a mile on calm, slowly moving, water, some figure 8s, and don’t capsize.
Context for people who have never kayaked before, at this stage literally no one can paddle in a straight line. Hell, most people end up spinning around 180 degrees after 3-5 stokes as their dominate side overpowers. Trying to turn the kayak is scary because you have to lean over (like a bike) but you don’t want to go for a swim in the river, so you don’t lean far enough, which makes the kayak feel less stable. Overall for most people starting out it’s an enjoyable time, but with a lot of nervousness and trepidation.
The club provide a list of kit recommendations for people starting out, all of which is related to clothing to keep you dry-ish, and costs max £100. Both the club officials, and the members, continuously tell people to not go out and buy loads of stuff immediately and how the majority of members hire the boats.
But every year one or two of the newbies decide they absolutely love it and next week come back having spent a few grand on their own kayak, paddle, and high-spec clothing (dry suits, etc), and proceed to spend the next 2 months absolutely hating their lives because they don’t have the skill to paddle the kayak they’ve bought, continually capsize because it’s “so unstable”, and ultimately quit through frustration.
The record for this is when someone bought three boats - whitewater / river, sea, and playboat - each of which require different skills, some of which are mutually exclusive (in a river kayak you lean left to turn left, in a sea kayak you lean right to turn left). To their credit, they’ve stuck at it, and were either very lucky in buying boats which fit their style, or are just sticking with them and learning how to paddle them through sheer insistence. Either way, fair play.
Buying a ton of gear to replace skill, or just because all the YouTubers are pushing it is so common.
I’ve made a conscious effort in all my hobbies to push as far as I can with entry level gear. Only upgrade when I’ve worn it out or I can articulate why I personally need better. Helps from ending up with a bloated collection of useless expensive things.
damn that’s wild. for hobbies i have experience in and am returning to, like climbing, i tend to rent gear one or two times and see if i wanna get back into it and then buy gear. i prefer to rent but for some things you just want your own gear. im not the most consistent with a lot of things, but when i buy gear i tend to keep returning stuff because i get reminded about a hobby when i see that i have it and then im more likely to do it.
something like your kayaking club though sounds absolutely perfect and i couldn’t fathom dropping thousands on a kayak when you haven’t even tried a bunch of stuff that’s available for you to try for damn near free.
My take on this is that it’s a predominately “rich person problem”.
Like pretty much all hobbies kayaking can absolutely be done cheaply, with some sensible ways of saving money and some rather dangerous ways.
Because the best kit is expensive, and status kit is even more expensive, rich people presume that because Awesome Person X uses Y, and they can afford to buy Y, they should also use Y.
What they forget is they are not APX, they are a newbie who cannot even get in the kayak without capsizing, and is now resorting to dragging their 3k carbonfibreglass composite beauty over gravel and rocks. We all start here, but most of us are in scratched up plastic boats where 1 more scratch doesn’t matter.
This tickled me.
A decade ago, I lived by a little lake. Bought essentially the cheapest single -piece kayak I could find. Fucking loved it. I don’t have that one any more but lately since I live so close to a national park it’s tempting to get one I can hike with. It never even crossed my mind that there’s enthusiast gear, aside from a super cozy pfd, sun protection, and maybe an anchor lol. Maybe it’s because I fish, too. I mean, why wouldn’t you? You can reach the best spots from the water!
So I’m super involved in my local bdsm community and it’s probably my main hobby. There’s a lot less misogyny than people not in the community think and a lot more than many of the men of the community think.
A lot of guys take that dom/sub dynamic too far, as an extension of misogynist beliefs. Agreed re: your evaluation.
It’s also pretty sad - you’re in the most permissive time in history for this stuff, someone is giving you a gift that (carefully approached) can let you live out your deepest sexual desires to everyone’s satisfaction, and you’re going to treat the person giving you that gift as actually lesser!? For fuck sakes man, not too long ago you’d be thrown in a psych ward for this shit.
That shit’s a problem for sure, but often the community weeds out dominant men who mistreat submissive women. That’s not to say we don’t have broken stairs and whatnot, I run a women’s group, it’s a problem for sure. But in my experience that aggressive of misogyny in such contexts is far more present in online spaces than reputable irl ones.
The area I see it most manifested is in the way dominant women are treated by men, both dominant and submissive. There are dominant men who love and respect submissive women but just struggle to treat dominant women as their equals. And on the flip side a lot of men who submit to women have a lot of hang ups about it and many treat them as sex objects.
There’s also still a problem with people assuming men are dominant (especially if they’re charismatic and/or handsome) and that women are submissive (especially if they’re small, shy, or feminine).
At least that’s what I’ve noticed as a woman who submits to women
Thanks for clarifying. I can’t say I’ve personally seen that to any great degree, but to be fair my experience was more of a toe dip. I can certainly see that being the case.
Yeah there’s definitely a thing where a local community in a good state doesn’t have as much of it, (though it will often exist) but when things get disrupted more can seep through. It’s been on my mind lately as I’ve been befriending a Domme that’s very new to all of this and her experiences are really elucidating the patterns I’ve seen glimpses of, but thought were more of online problems.
I practice BDSM occasionally and i recently did a scene with someone. There were times where boundaries were accidentally crossed, but my reaction to that was an immediate “are you ok and do you need to stop”. Luckily the person was very understanding and actually discovered some stuff they liked, but I simply cannot fathom trying to take advantage of someone who is giving you so much already. I didn’t like nor enjoy that I had accidentally transgressed on boundaries, and am working to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, but the priority is and should always be safety and comfort.
The good thing is, you’re most people - looking for all parties to have fun within the boundaries of safety and participant comfort. Topping is a huge responsibility, and you had the correct reaction.
But just like in the everyday world, there are abusive people out there. Folks, particularly bottoms who are still fleshing out their boundaries, can be vulnerable to these people. My opinion is that situation can be made more complicated due to the taboo nature of the interaction and unique social norms that have a learning curve (ex: what happens if you’re newer, someone starts spewing ‘true dom/true sub’ crap early on, and that sets your expectations for BDSM?).
Captain Lez is bang on when saying this is the value of a community for vetting and feedback re: what you’re doing. But again, like in everyday life, people can ingratiate themselves into that community as a means of cover.
It really isn’t all that different from abusive relationships in every other context, just with an additional layer of sensation and social norms that can cloud judgement/mask the abuse.
Will say OP made great points on misogyny in this world expressed in less aggressive ways, and heck, even this conversation underscores it. People like you and me jump right to guys in a dom role disregarding the boundaries of women in a sub role, for reasons of hating women. We’re not those people, most of the people we meet in this context aren’t those people, and the few we become aware of are usually blacklisted pretty quick, so we think misogyny is not a major problem in the community. The stated dynamics between some Doms and Dommes, and male bottoms to their Dommes, challenges that. I may not have come across it simply because I am a guy who doesn’t feel that way, my community is very much female-led, and everyone I met was pretty respectful/darned greatful a community existed at all, but I can definitely see it being a thing.
Thank you for your kind words. I get a lil scared domming sometimes because as a victim of sexual assault, i would never want to out someone through that. I’m glad the community seems to be doing better than the majority of society.
I find this one especially egregious because as a fellow practitioner, my first priority is safety, safety, safety. i hate to see the bigotry and lack or respect
For the more “masculine” ones, say video games and roleplaying games, really wish guys were less fucking rude to me or even just ignoring me. Or also lovely is me suggesting an idea, ignoring me, then agreeing when someone else takes it and suggests it.
Some people online are oddly hostile about American recipes using cups/tablespoons? I do a lot of baking, so much I do have a scale, but that’s extremely uncommon here. Most cup recipes are fine. Even weighed recipes need tweaking sometimes.
Knitting is a solo hobby because oh man old ladies can be really weird about what yarn you use or needles you use or even why you’re knitting so young. I was 30 when they were saying this. Sure, younger than them but???
For the first point, does it help if the person repeating it acknowledges that they were just repeating what you said? I find that in conversations in general sometimes people don’t get heard so I try to repeat what they said so it can be heard but I always try to start along the lines of “Going back to what you said…”.
For the other two I completely understand and I think it’s just a weird form of gatekeeping.
It’s not as bad when it’s started with like, “I agree with x” or “What if we did what x said but with <insert thing here>” or something, sure. They usually don’t though, almost never. And then everyone at the table acts as if the person who said it came up with it and it’s infuriating.
Edit - I might not be clear. The person suggesting the idea I had is generally not boosting it so it’s heard, they are generally acting as if they came up with it, and then everyone suddenly realizes it’s a good idea coming from a guy instead. When it’s someone realizing the idea wasn’t heard, they usually don’t do that.
I can only imagine how frustrating that must be. I’m sorry that a lot of men are probably subconsciously really shitty and just don’t have the care and self awareness to do anything about that.
The problem with cups and tbsp/tsp is that it varies between sets of spoons.
100g is 100g no matter what. And I don’t need to look for the damn spoons all the time, I can just mix the ingredients by weight directly into the bowl.
Not just that, when I moved out of my parents’ place or out on my own from a roommate situation all I ever needed was my scale. I didn’t have to buy wet measuring cups, dry measuring cups, measuring spoons and what have you filling my drawers and cupboards with inaccurate nonsense.
I also have ultra accurate versions of a couple of my friends’ grandparents’ recipes. Turns out just a dash of this and a dash of that was amounting to up to 50 grams of extra corn flour or whatever. If you can get someone to participate in giving you a recipe you can really just recreate it with zero guesswork.
