#love‚ etc

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

This is the sort of post that'll probably get me in trouble and I shouldn't trust y'all to behave with it, but I'm in a dismal state and willing to take high-risk moves in an attempt to improve things. Nobody uses Tumblr on Friday nights anymore so it's not like many of you will even see this.

Recently I realized that my experience of being long-term single feels a lot like my experience of being unemployed. I met all the basic qualifications for all sorts of positions but couldn't get an interview. As far as I could tell, I was qualified, just a little light on experience. I was applying to jobs literally every day for months and maybe every couple of weeks would get some sort of indication that my resume had been advanced before ultimately getting the rejection email. After graduation, I was unemployed for a full year and got four (4) interviews in that time, one of which was a follow-up interview for a job I didn't get. Finally I threw in the towel and went to grad school. Two years later, I got plenty of interviews and multiple offers. When the job I took didn't work out, I got an offer for an even better position in just a few weeks. It's hard to express the difference between those three job search experiences. I never even finished the degree!

My attempts at romance feel very similar to when I couldn't get an interview after undergrad. I might not be an amazing catch, but I think I'm more than qualified for a serious boyfriend role. And yet, even when I'm active on Bumble every day for weeks at a time, I'm doing well if I match with someone every couple of weeks. Usually they send their mandatory first message, I respond as appropriate and ask a question in return, and I don't get any sort of response. I assume they're getting plenty of matches with men more attractive and neurotypical than me, just as I assume engineering firms were flooded with resumes from students at better schools with higher GPAs. Believe it or not, that doesn't make me feel any better about getting zero traction for months on end.

Just as when I was trying to get a job, it ultimately feels like getting into a relationship is a matter fundamentally outside of my control, that I have no ability to influence. All I can do is wait and hope that something turns up despite mounting evidence that it never will. Getting to a first date feels like a Herculean task when even the women who explicitly said they were interested choose instead to ignore my attempts at conversation. Actually being in a relationship is starting to feel like pure fantasy.

Perhaps I'm looking for love in the wrong places; neither of the firms where I've worked full-time were places where I applied when I was unemployed after undergrad. Of course, trying to figure out where women who want to date a nerd like me might be is not exactly easy, just like trying to find new firms that have relevant openings isn't easy when you have a niche resume and interests. (Tumblr worked once and never again since for reasons that are basically inscrutable to me.) Ultimately, the way I found those positions was just being systematic in checking the careers webpage for every aerospace firm I heard about and putting openings in a giant spreadsheet. I'd apply to at least one position a day, and started getting interviews that eventually led to an offer.

But I think what actually made the difference was going to grad school. For the life of me, I can't figure out what the dating equivalent of an MS would be. The only thing approaching a real suggestion that I've heard is Vibe Camp. Beyond the logistical nightmares I hear about every year, I'm very skeptical that something like that would meaningfully increase my odds of getting a girlfriend. I've been to special interest conventions (with better ratios) before and there doesn't seem to be any romantic value—immediate or long-term—to the experience. So as far as I can tell, I'm just stuck until I luck into meeting my wife randomly.

[wildbasil]

things haven't been great but i think they will be. eventually 🌻🌼🩷

[goryfluff]

Nautilus expedition live streams (+ their commentary) 2020 / 2021 / 2022

[platoapproved]

louis + cruelty

[mothwriter]

[stiffyck]

Good luck during pride month to all the aroaces who are gonna be blasted with "love is love" everywhere

Edit:

This post includes aplatonic people, loveless aros and any other people who fall anywhere on the aro and ace spectrum.

Stop saying "but theres platonic love and familial love-"

[perfectlyripeclementine]

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

[mienar]

the wandering painter, part one

instagram | shop | commission info

[1-7776]

This is makign me sick why are the devs taking off his hat every frame and putting it back just to do it again for the rest of his life. do you think its funny? you sickos you freaks leave him alone you dont deserve him

[amalgamezz]

ALT

[chloesimaginationthings]

Happy 1 year anniversary to FNAF ruin!!

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

My youngest cousin got engaged which means I'm the only one neither married, betrothed, nor divorced. Maybe its time to lean into the confirmed bachelor thing.

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[effemira]

post bath

[idolomantises]

I think one of the more unfortunate consequences to creators being more interactive with fans is that a lot of fans/fandoms normalized this idea that creators have to explain/validate every headcanon they have.