#communication and community

[essence-inked]

So much this, also thia is one of my favorite social contracts because it shows so well how genuinely taking an interest in other people's wellbeing is a survival tool (i.e., a great rebuttal for the notion that kindness won't get you far). You can't really Know Many Guys if you're not actually invested in helping them out in return, and as someone who's occasionally been The Guy, it gets exhausting to have that be one-sided after a bit, so the best and most lasting forms of this are when everyone involved is actually invested in everyone's wellbeing. This is all to say that step one of Knowing a Guy (which OP does touch on, but I want to elaborate about) is that you need to become a Guy to Know yourself. You kind of need to start off with just "okay, how can I help/be useful to the people around me," and be compassionate and attentive, and do things even though there isn't a benefit for you.

The transactional piece comes later - at least in my experience, a lot of Knowing a Guy happens when I've done something nice for someone else, or they've done something nice for me, and then the other person reciprocates. Sometimes, this looks like doing something small for someone who's an acquaintance, but who you don't necessarily like, and then they will sometimes do the same for you, and you wind up with a very low key connection where you sometimes help each other out, but don't get closer than that. Other times, this looks like a back-and-forth of you and another person going just a bit out of your way to help each other, and then just a bit more, and next thing you know you'd both go seriously above and beyond to help the other person out (which is kinda just how friends work, just with the added social contract module of swapping skillsets).

But however the relationship shakes out, a core part of mutualism is that someone has to kick it off with doing something for the other person, and then the other person's got to reciprocate. The transactional bounds of the relationship can't be established until that's happened, and OP's so right that you gotta both reach out to people, and also make an effort to be helpful yourself.

Networking/Knowing A Guy: A Guide

This is the autism website. Now, as an extension of the power of love and friendship, there are few things more useful than Knowing A Guy. Knowing A Guy means you have a support network. Knowing a plumber, or a tax accountant, or just that one dude that's really fucking good at finding the information you need when you're really overwhelmed, can be the difference between being able to pay rent and having a fun party with friends to fix your shit.

How does one end up Knowing A Guy? It's a skill you can develop called Networking and it is one of the foundations of society. Unfortunately making those connections with people is fucking hard and nobody makes a tutorial for it. So, here you go:

The golden rule is you scratch my back and I scratch yours

It is necessary for survival to seek out useful people

Great news! Everyone is useful in some form or fashion - including you! When given the opportunity to learn about someone, do it! Extroversion does not come naturally to some people and that's okay. Just take whatever falls in your lap.

Types of usefulness: trade skills, connections of their own, personality you jive with, pleasant to talk to, niche interest in shared hobby, security - the list is pretty much endless. I know a guy that lives in the metro area - no job, no major hobbies, inoffensively annoying to me personally, kinda ignorant, not attractive to me, but you know what? He knows how the fuck to get around the city by foot. My rural-raised ass APPRECIATES the guide.

Remember important information: general personality, background, skillset, likes and dislikes. You can find this information by making smalltalk about their life. There is no such thing as pointless conversation. (Yes, even the annoying smalltalk)

The more people you know, the higher the likelihood that one of them will be useful in a given situation - or will know someone who is.

It is overwhelming. In a given clique/community/workspace/whatever, there is A Guy Who Knows The Other Guys. This Guy is a shortcut. Find them. They're often elderly, extroverted, a little bit annoying, a secretary or in some otherwise forward-facing position. Look for people that are gossipy/talk about other people a lot but not in negative ways. If they constantly talk shit, they'll talk shit about you too. They're still useful but be careful with the information you share

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.*

If you have low self esteem, you're going to feel like you're using people. You're not. That's the devil talking. People like feeling valued and the connections you are making are the threads holding community together. Recognize people for their talents. It's only a problem when you're taking advantage of people

So: don't feel scummy about it. You're an animal. You have to claw out your right to survive and people will respect you more for it.

Luckily mutualism is the name of the game in the animal kingdom. Offer something back. The foundation of a Know A Guy relationship is Mutual Benefit

Sometimes that Mutual Benefit is just spreading news of the The Guy far and wide. My plumber friend is my actual friend and I love her to death, but I'm maintaining our backscratch relationship by pimping out her plumbing business to anyone that'll listen

Food is a good Mutual Benefit. People across cultures for all of human history have bonded over food. I have good success asking people for a favor and then offering to buy them lunch in return **

General compensation is also good. Offer a service in return and always do your best to offer financial compensation as appropriate. Having your plumber friend take a look at your drain: doable with a case of beer. Having your plumber friend redo the pipes in your entire house? You need to pay for that.

Being transactional is not necessarily a bad thing. I would advise against keeping an itemized list of things owed, but fish don't seek out cleaner shrimp just because they enjoy their company. Everyone gets something

Unfortunately being extroverted and generally personable is a huge benefit here, but that's the value of the Guy That Knows A Guy. There's someone out there that has consolidated All The Guys so you don't have to be the local expert. Always remember nobody can do everything and you don't need to master every skill

* This is the foundation of a functioning community. I have many acquaintances that I find incredibly annoying. They include doctors, welders, artists, social workers, lawyers, construction crew and random fuckers at the grocery store. I do not hang out with them. I do not have to in order to maintain a civil Know A Guy relationship. I can drop them useful tidbits and fuck right off so I don't have to spend any more time than necessary with them

** People may assume romantic intent. Be prepared for that. I generally denote that it's a friendly/work lunch by calling them bro at some point if they're my age. Otherwise my general demeanor is sufficient to show that I do this with everyone

Source: personal experience, mother's teachings of crime, booth vending and poverty

[essence-inked]

Just a reminder that no one can take away the fact that we are not alone. They can try, and they will, and they are, but they can't make us withdraw from each other and give up and agree that it's over, that there's nothing good left for us.

We do this together. We do the changing things and fixing things and building things together, but we also do the grieving and recovery and comfort together.

They can make that devastatingly hard, but they can't stop us from caring, and from carving small moments of okay-ness out of even the most bleak world.

Yesterday morning, I brought my therapist a cup of tea as a thank you for what was what presumably going to be a very long day of helping a lot of distraught clients.

On my lunch break, I went to pick up some Pratchett from the library, and the guy working the front desk seemed just as shaken as I probably looked, but we made polite conversation, and sinking into the words of my book was still as warm and soft as ever.

All day, every group chat I was in was a place of support, of reassurances that everyone there was loved, of small jokes and gentle distractions.

In the evening, my boyfriend and I had some friends over for pizza and board games and cookie-baking. Despite everything, the night was full of giddy laughter and good food, and when we finally sent them on their way with even more cookies to take home, I hopped on a call with another group of friends, because pretty much everyone was finding ways to be together that evening.

Everything is not even slightly okay, and so many awful things are going to happen in the next four years, but we can fight back, and that starts with just being there for each other. Now is the time to tell people you love them, to be especially gentle to yourself and everyone around you, to refuse to let your ability to find happiness be defined by people who wish you harm.

Persist out of spite, out of defiance, and out of love for those around you.

We got this.

[sourdough-seal]

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[thinkspam]

[essence-inked]

My boyfriend and I actually started up a google doc with a list of all the seemingly-nonsensical phrases we've incorporated into our vocabulary over the years just so we can have a record of this shit

[cornyonmains]

Something I find very interesting about this CEO assassination is that the guy who did it has basically become an American hero.

They're probably quite worried about what will happen when they catch this guy, especially with the level of public support he has. If they catch him alive and he gets to air his grievances, he could unite the entire country against the private healthcare system. It could go to trial and result in jury nullification, which would basically send a message to the American public that catching a rich body comes without consquences.

If they kill him to keep his mouth shut, I'd say people will burn cities to the ground, and it could potentially provoke even more anger against private health insurance. In a powder keg, it only takes one person lighting the match.

I know it sounds over the top, but a figurehead is a powerful thing, and that's what this shooter is. The rich understand it. That's why Blue Cross just magically decided they were going to pay for anesthesia again. Those dead-eyed psychopaths were going to take everything they could until someone shot that guy and that's the gospel truth.

Keep the hate fire burning. Watching their fear is the closest I've come to knowing joy since the Bush administration.

[mollybeenoel]

Source: poeticalphotos

[viktor-the-leshen]

[essence-inked]

Dude I grew up with basically no video games, present-day TV (we had some DVDs of popular movies at least, and a bunch of old 60s sitcoms), and no discussion of healthy Internet use ever. The result was that I spent high school binge-reading fanfiction until three in the morning because I had no concept of healthy screen time, and then spent my first year of college hiding in my dorm watching Netflix because I had so much I could finally catch up on. I'm 26 now, and I'm doing a ton better, but growing up in an environment where the approach to technology was to limit it rather than to talk about it was a massive contributor to my childhood isolation, and even now I still have to explain to people that no, really, I did not experience whatever pop culture thing they're referencing, and not everyone DID grow up with that.

Your kids will experience the world whether you want them to or not. But if you talk to them about it and show them how to do it in healthy ways, they'll have the tools to navigate it better.

[raqualswonderfunblog]

[essence-inked]

So I've been taking some vacation time to travel around Europe with the boyfriend, and we've been sleeping in the basement room of this hostel in London for the past few days.

Anyways it's gotten me thinking about that thing humans do where they form little communities in transient places. In the hostel, people chat in the hallways, and say hi to each other even though we're all strangers, and at one point I heard someone singing outside in a language I don't know, and it was beautiful and haunting, and all the other voices went quiet to listen. Even the dude who hit on me at eight in the damn morning was polite and respectful about me not being interested, and I got the sense if he wasn't, no one would've let that fly, because one of the nice things about everyone being all packed in together is that no one needs to deal with things alone.

And this isn't the first time I've seen it - I'm reminded of that time I had to sleep in an airport for a night because a storm had grounded the flights, and everyone else stuck there had sort of wordlessly moved to be close to each other, clustered in the same areas while others nearby were left empty. People who wouldn't normally interact with each other sought solace in being near another human, and no one I saw that night (before curling up in an armchair not too far from some other travelers and nodding off myself) was sleeping without being close to someone else.

Or like, I'm reminded of that time when I was solo backpacking and there was bad weather rolling in, and I was lucky enough to be near a camping shelter. It turns out everyone else had the same idea to hole up there for the night, so when I got there a bit after dark, the place was packed with people. Someone passed me a slice of pizza that'd been ordered in from the town nearby, and everyone sat around and talked, and the next day when a tornado watch kept us from heading out again, the guy in charge of maintaining the cabin bought us breakfast so we didn't have to waste a day's food. We sat around for a couple hours at the local diner, and we swapped stories, and I still have one of that group's contacts in my phone.

Anyways, point is that every time I find myself in forced proximity to other people in a place between other places, it doesn't take long for these little hubs of kindness and community to crop up. And I just think it's really neat that humans' default setting is cooperation because, sure, that can lead to humans cooperating to do bad stuff, but it also means that in strange places and unusual situations, people don't like leaving each other to fend for themselves.

[bebs-art-gallery]

Art by Essi Välimäki

[essence-inked]

No but seriously, being reminded that lots of people feel this way is actually a lot more helpful than just being told that believing you need to be perfect isn't a viable mindset. "You are not alone, we are all dealing with this nonsense together" can be such a powerful sentiment, and I am so on board with that.

YOU don’t have to be perfect to be loved. but I do

[suzypfonne]

Before January 2025:

If you are a USAmerican in a relationship that might be affected by legislation that dissolves same-sex marriages, who may no longer be recognized as next-of-kin, especially if you have children, get your rights in writing!

Your marriage certificate may not be enough to prove you have rights to make medical decisions for non-biological children or for a same-sex spouse or partner.

Go to a lawyer, get it spelled out as clearly as possible that you have a voice in emergency medical and legal situations.

[thankstothe]

folk hero really