#apps in recent years.

[princehendir]

I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I don't think it's useful to conflate "available for other reasons, but also inadvertently ends up benefiting some disabled people" with "is an accessibility feature". I think that intention actually ends up being kinda relevant here.

[ceilidho]

"margaritaville" as the title of a price/reader fic where reader meets John on vacation at the swim-up bar and they hook up in his hotel room where he conveniently forgets to use a condom because he secretly thinks she'd look cute with a baby

[deoidesign]

I met the me who made different choices

[eddis-not-eeddis]

How To Stop Killing Conversations

Talking is hard. People are confusing. Making friends is difficult, and interacting with coworkers is tortuous.

You want to make friends, you want to reach out, but it's hard and every time you start a conversation it dies, or limps along until both you and the person you're talking to are looking for excuses to kill it and put it out of it's misery so you can both escape the increasingly awkward situation.

As an introvert who has suffered a lot of social anxiety in my time, let me share a few tricks I've learned over the years going through hundreds and thousands of excruciatingly painful conversations until I found something that works. I've kind of distilled the process.

ALWAYS ASK A QUESTION!!!

The first thing is to always leave your partner an opening. You need to let each other talk for a conversation to get off the ground, but it's more than that, really. You need to actively encourage each other to talk. The best way to do that is to ask questions.

Here are two examples of an introduction: Example A

You: Hello.

Them: Hello.

You: Nice to meet you.

Them: Nice to meet you too.

Example B

Y: Hello, nice to meet you, how are you? T: I’m doing well, yourself?

Y: I've been really well. How are you liking the weather?

T: I'm so happy the weather's finally getting cooler, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice season. Do you like lattes?

Do you see how in Example A the conversation wasn’t going anywhere? It just kinda died, because there weren’t any openings for new topics, whereas in Example B, there were openings to keep the conversation going.

But what do you do if your conversation partner is as socially inept as you were two minutes ago and doesn't play along? All is not lost.

Example C

Y: Hello, so nice to meet you, how have you been doing?

T: I'm doing well.

Y: That's great, are you enjoying the nice weather, then?

T: Yeah. I'm glad it's finally fall, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice lattes.

Y: I love pumpkin spice lattes! Pumpkin spice anything, really. I recently got the best pumpkin spice candle at the shop down the road, have you been there?

Even if they don't leave you an opening, you can usually make one. It may be difficult, especially when they don't give you much to work with. This is where having a go-to script is a life-saver--me, I always default to talking about the weather, so when in doubt, you can do that.* The important thing right now is to keep fostering the conversation, so once you bring up the weather, segue into a question. When they answer the question, make a brief comment or observation from your own experience and build off of that comment or observation to ask another question.

"But I don't want to make it about me. Doing that's bad, right?"

This is why that questions are important. If you haven't been asked a question, you kinda have to make it about you, you don't have a choice. But to keep from being an attention hog, follow up your shared experience or anecdote with another question.

Example D

T: I love pumpkin spice lattes

Y: Me too. I had the best pumpkin spice latte the other day at the cafe down the road, have you ever been there?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again, and you aren't taking the limelight. Sharing an experience is so important, you're trying to show that you understand, that you sympathize, that you relate.**

This really is the most important element of being a good conversationalist. You have to keep asking questions.

The one other thing I will touch on is introductions. DO NOT get into turn based combat.

Example E

Y: Hello

T: Hello

Y: Nice to meet you

T: Nice to meet you too.

Y: How are you doing?

T: I'm fine. You?

Y: Me too.

This will kill any possibility of continuing a conversation. Instead, get it all out of the way all at once, if at all possible.

Example F

Y: Hi, it's nice to meet you, how are you doing?

This is good, but this is better

Example G

Y: Hi, nice to meet you, how are you liking the weather?

Don't ask how they are doing, or if you do, before they can answer, follow it up with your placeholder (weather etc.) so they have to say some thing like

Example H

T: I'm fine, and I'm really liking the weather.

or

T: Not so great, the weather sucks.

Either of those options are much easier to work with than your basic "I'm fine."

Usually, if you can get past the introduction, you can get a conversation going. And then, even if you don't end up hitting it off with the person you're talking with, you at least don't leave the conversation feeling like you've died a thousand tiny deaths.

In fact, if you get past that introduction, you may have just made yourself a friend.

Remember folks, basically everyone around you is more afraid of you than you are of them, and in this benighted age no one has been taught conversation skills, so we are all pretty much in the same boat. (Unless you were born an extrovert, in which case we are all deeply envious and would probably kill you if we didn't need you in our sad and lonely lives so much.)

Have grace for one another, and for yourselves because talking with people is difficult.

Go forth, and stop killing conversations.

*If you are one of those awful people who likes to brag about how you hate small talk and only want to talk about important and meaningful things, I have one question: Do you ever have a conversation that lasts long enough to become meaningful? I thought not. Small talk is an important skill. Develop it.

**This is how you deal with sad or difficult situations too. When you want to show you sympathize with someone going through a hard time.

Example:

Y: How are you doing?

T: Not very well. My dog died last week.

Y: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. My own dog died last year and I still miss her a lot. How are you handling it?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again. You aren't making it about you.

If y'all want, next time I can share how to extricate yourself from a conversation.

[zainpartii]

hello Tumblr ( I say as I shake in my boots )

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I was wondering, what's your interpretation of tTPD as a whole?. I know a lot of people think it's a 31 album dedicated to one main muse minus 2 songs for his ex long term relationship but i was curious about your thoughts.

Also, some theorists are talking about a potential 10 years situationship between taylor and one muse and it makes me feel... weird. Because she was committed to someone else and i don't know how to feel knowing the other muse could be in some of my fave albums... sorry for the long rant

So there’s a lot going on here and it’s nuanced.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “it’s all about one person minus two songs.” There are several muses woven in both the text and subtext of the songs. And what happened with one muse in many cases was only possible because what happened with another. There are some songs that are explicitly about specific people’s actions, but overall things get muddy because situations are muddy.

This is a cop out answer, but ultimately to me the album is about Taylor. It’s about her pain and grief and trauma and also healing and recovery and joy. To reduce it to a man in particular discounts that she is the main character of her own life and story.

I do not think the story she put down in TTPD is one of a decade long situationship. As I said yesterday, I will gladly change my mind if new information comes to light. The story I picked up in TTPD is one where someone entered her life at a very vulnerable time, exploited their shared history to sow the seeds of this fantasy life to her that she was desperately grieving in her very real current life, which caused her to play revisionist history with her memories because she needed to make it “real” to herself as an escape hatch.

But even if that isn’t the case, and if it turns out that yes, she was pining for this person for ten years… it doesn’t take away from the fact that her past music is excellent, regardless of the inspiration. IMO fans would be better served to not always recall the muses when listening to music for their enjoyment. I know Taylor’s music is different because her life is so well documented and she used to be so open about who she was writing about, but very few artists do that and their music still hits. I don’t think at all about the artists’ lives when listening to any other band; hell, even in well-known messy situations like Fleetwood Mac, I’m not thinking about Stevie and Mick, I’m thinking that Landslide is beautiful and Rhiannon is a banger or whatever. If you think too much about the artists’ personal lives, you’re gonna get twisted in knots and may find there are few people you can listen to, because humans are fallible and messy and make mistakes. Like Taylor says, once the songs are out in the world, they’re not hers anymore, and you need to ascribe your own meaning to them.

Which is not to say I wasn’t surprised when I first figured out who she was writing about when I listened to TTPD, and yes the first few listens of the album made my head spin a bit for the lore of it all, but i truly listen to it like any other album now. It’s good music plain and simple.

What I’m trying to say is that you have to set your own boundaries I guess. If it really bothers you then you don’t have to listen to or engage with it. But personally I’m also not going to moralize Taylor’s or anyone else’s music because she’s human just like any of us and we all make choices in our lives. She was just brave enough to share the mess. It’s not a condoning of her actions because she doesn’t need my or anyone else’s approval for her choices. She’s recording a moment of time in her life and turned it into art, and now it takes on new meaning for listeners.

(Also if people are moralizing her choices because of the “commitment” thing well… I think they weren’t picking up on other parts of the album but. Well.)

Also my pet peeve is that I hate the word “theory” when applied to real people. They’re humans with lives, not characters in a TV show. This isn’t directed at you anon, just a general sentiment.

[mudaxolotl]

*doofenshmirtz voice* what are the odds

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[genericpuff]

Well...at least its kinda advertising other comics...😮‍💨

man fuck it i ain't even satisfied with deleting the app anymore

gonna delete my whole ass existence off webtoons

[juniperhillpatient]

saw a rock musical my brother did the lights for & then explored the abandoned tunnels under the theatre which was once a tuberculosis hospital. I don’t get out much but when I do it’s something sick

[rimouskis]

hey self if you like your "haha yeah I'm friends with a lot of 30 somethings and I love having friends in that age range" then you're gonna have to get real comfortable with the inevitable "oh my god why are all my friends having babies we're too young for this"

[olgipolgi]

▫️ Clive Rosfield ▫️

Game: Final Fantasy XVI 🎮

[moxymaxing]

chat is this real

[exopelagic]

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME BURROWS END WASNT FREE

[samarecharm]

Oh my god. I have to update my fucking phone. Stop updating ur useless fucking apps that do nothing but bloat my fucking PHONE

[clowningaroundmars]

the way that i am now downloading stock market news apps......... and squinting at these crazy ass news articles and learning finance terms n shit.... trying to read these number and graphs........

i am morphing into a middle aged dad of 3 kids. 🧍‍♂️