blue dreams🍃

Twice in my youth (once in high school and once in college) I was in situations where I was asking someone out and I could tell they were calculating in their heads the risks of rejecting me, and both times I said, out loud, "you can say no, I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared for either answer." And then they said no. This wasn't some spark of special wisdom I had - I knew to do it because feminist conversations among my age group brought it up regularly. This isn't happening nearly enough anymore.

More recently, I was really glad when we got to "rejection sensitive dysphoria" in my IOP program and it was one of those symptoms where the therapists really emphasized how it affects others. Because it does.

Twice in my youth (once in high school and once in college) I was in situations where I was asking someone out and I could tell they were calculating in their heads the risks of rejecting me, and both times I said, out loud, "you can say no, I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared for either answer." And then they said no. This wasn't some spark of special wisdom I had - I knew to do it because feminist conversations among my age group brought it up regularly. This isn't happening nearly enough anymore.

More recently, I was really glad when we got to "rejection sensitive dysphoria" in my IOP program and it was one of those symptoms where the therapists really emphasized how it affects others. Because it does.

You don't need to try to become a public expert on Venezuela or Maduro based on reading half the Wikipedia page or scrolling the Bluesky tags. You don't need to state any opinion on the former political situation of Venezuela at all. It's okay for now to admit that you know fuck all about it, or to just not speak on it.

An opinion like 'The US shouldn't use blatantly false evidence as an excuse to attack a country for purely selfish reasons' is a full opinion that doesn't require knowing exactly what was up in the country being attacked.

Oh yes, I definitely didn't mean 'don't learn about it'. Learning about Venezuelan politics is good and useful!

But learning the history and politics of any country takes time and serious effort - doubly so if you've been raised in the American or European propaganda bubble.

The internet doesn't need more loud Americans and Europeans in particular, jumping to conclusions and pretending to speak with authority about things they've only just started learning about.