:)

Me: I don’t care and it doesn’t matter, she could be a girl it could be straight presenting but still queer gender wise he could be gender non-conforming and they’re gay they might be bi. Anyone can dress however they want and identify however they want, they aren’t hurting anyone.

My dad: so like someone could identify as a lion?

I was making a joke, specifically built on how impossible the premise is. If you're driving on the highway and cross five different cars going the opposite direction, then the most likely option of what is going on is that

-> you <-

as someone whose u.s. city has 4 interecions literally 40 meters in the air :

it is stupid, idiotically, impossibly difficult to drive on the wrong side of any major u.s. highway. there are thick concrete walls across 5 lanes and in many cases they (the opposite directions) are not even connected on the same platform.

An on ramp only connects you to the correct direction, you would have to do a full 270° U-turn at at 97k/hr. It would be jarring.

I have heard this almost exact saying before but I usually hear it as, “if you’re on the highway and one person is going the wrong way they’re the issue, if everyone is going the wrong way you’re the issue”

To me, with my experiences of highways so far, 5 cars going the wrong way is a them issue. So while I get your point and your phrasing is not wrong, it’s kind of a funny image for me and I wanted to share that. That’s why I put in the tags not the reblog.

Similarly, protesting has stopped being a tool for forcing action from specific agencies and has become almost a social hangout to telegraph In-Group/Out-Group status.

Listen, I get it: we're all overworked and underpaid and doing things like boycotting some company because "they did a bad thing" or showing up to a "No Kings Protest" makes you feel like you're Doing Something™ which feels better than doing nothing.

The human version of Jackson Galaxy explaining in an interview that the best indicator is to look at the body language of the other humans around them. It's hard to tell anxiously agitated and deligted, excited human movement and sound apart sometimes, but one clear clue is clapping. It's not a reflex but it is a natural behaviour they do in the wild, and therefore very easily learned and taught - if one human in the pack is a clapper, the others are very likely to pick up on it.

And, if it seems one human is seriously injured or signaling they want out, do they pause to make sure they’re ok/stop the fight or keep going. Play fighting is not intended to seriously injure and is meant to be done with full consent so humans will generally stop if they notice their partner tapping out or injured.

Stallions play fight all the time. And seriously fight from time to time. The difference is easy to see if you know what you’re looking for.

When it’s serious, horses hold their ears down, “pinned” against their heads. They also paw the ground between attacks.

wait. cancel post. gung-ho cannot be English. where did that phrase come from? China?

ok, yes. gōnghé, which is…an abbreviation for “industrial cooperative”? Like it was just a term for a worker-run organization? A specific U.S. marine stationed in China interpreted it as a motivational slogan about teamwork, and as a commander he got his whole battalion using it, and other U.S. marines found those guys so exhausting that it migrated into English slang with the meaning “overly enthusiastic”.

"I don't grasp what you mean, ma'am."

"I've had you for what, ten, fifteen years now?"

"Fourteen this spring, ma'am."

"And yet I've never seen you smile. Not even once."

"It's a matter of respect."

"You don't smile to people you respect?"

"I don't smile to people I don't like, and I don't lie to people I respect. I don't like you, ma'am, but I respect you enough to not lie about it."

"Well that's rather cold."

I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia. Currently I'm deemed not fit to drive, and if I ever wanted to I'd have to be assessed to see if I'm going to be safe on the road. Currently I'm definitely not safe to drive, I can fall asleep while walking in the street.

When I tell people I don't drive because I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, they start giving me suggestions on what to do. But that doesn't happen when I tell them "actually, I don't really want to drive these big death machines and I think public transport is really important and it can't improve if people don't use it" and that makes them stop trying to solve it.

In their eyes, I'm saying I have a disability that prevents me from driving because it's a roadblock to something I want to do. It's not about disrespecting the disability in their eyes, it's about trying to help you because they think you're saying you need help.

But when you say you just don't want to, or when you say you're a loser, that's not a roadblock they can help with. It's you stating "I'm not doing that" and putting up a sort of boundary. By sharing something more personal like what your disability is, it's interpreted as an invitation to ask more, because you already shared something personal, if that makes sense.

In their eyes it's the same as when they ask you "how was your weekend?" If you reply with just "good" they usually won't ask more because it's just a polite question, but if you say "good, I read a good book" they'll ask what book you read because you volunteered information.

Also, unlike saying "I don't want to drive" saying you're "a loser" will make most people uncomfortable, which is why they'll only laugh and change the subject. Tackling someone's self depreciation is much harder and "ruins the mood" of the conversation, so people prefer to abort the topic to not make it depressing.

You can achieve the same thing by saying you're too disabled to drive instead of saying you're a loser, and you also avoid the awkwardness they feel about you being self deprecating. If they ask what you mean by that, say "that's personal" and they'll usually leave you alone.