Emrie

Hi, I spend too much time on TikTok and was served a very interesting video where someone shared their favorite dates, so I thought about some cool date ideas. Then I thought we could have a thread here where we can all share date ideas and why we like them: First dates: Drinks Coffee Hiking or Walking Grocery shopping or running basic errands. I kid you not, if the person you're talking to doesn't want to go on a date, just tell them you're going to run some errands and want to know if they'd like to accompany you. It's genius because they don't feel like it's a date and it's this super chill low-key environment. Then you can lead them and say "hey I'm feeling a little thirsty, wanna go get drinks?" Going to an art show. Nothing too fancy so they don't have to dress up too hard and it's just a nice time, and something that's nice and quick, you don't want either of you to be stuck with each other too long. If you're both sporty (I know I am), you can organize a sporty activity together, a game of beach volley, a game of football, maybe even going skiing together or something. It won't feel like a direct romantic date but it still gives you opportunity to be direct with them and maybe can lead into something more direct afterwards. General rule with first dates is that you want it to be low-investment, so something that doesn't feel too heavy, too long, too expensive. And then when things go well, you want to lead into something else. So you can start with drinks, but then go for a walk, and then grab another drink somewhere else, and if things go reaaaally well, can even go back to either your or their place. Second dates: At this stage, I think it's okay to up the game a bit. An escape room. I actually love escape rooms because it's an amazing moment to see how your date's mind works and you're also bonding together and solving a problem. And you can easily lead into a drinks or even dinner together afterwards. Arcade games. Again just a generally super fun time to hang out. Ice skating Pottery Climbing Bowling Ballroom dancing Scavenger hunt I feel like already on the second date we can have longer, more involved dates. On third and subsequent dates, you can do something that you would've done on the second date but you just ended up picking a different option (e.g. go to an escape room on the the third date after having gone ice skating on the second). Or even just directly to each other's place and having dinner or baking something together. What do y'all think about these dates up there? Am I completely stupid and missing the mark or genius? And what are y'all's favorite dates?

@flowboy Actually there are pre-planned scavenger hunts in my city that are more for like tourists to like explore the city in a fun interesting way, that's what I was thinking. I know and I totally agree that you should match your partner's investment in you. For me, doing some climbing or pottery for like an hour or 90 minutes doesn't really feel like a huge investment, more just like a fun afternoon activity, and then can lead into something else afterwards naturally. It's definitely more than just grocery shopping leading into a dinner or picnic, but it's not like a big heavy thing where you go to an expensive fancy dinner. The escape room, I'd agree that it's maybe a bit much in terms of money investment. Of course your date has to agree and it has to feel right with both you and your date that you're not putting too much pressure on each other and I would never do all that stuff on the first date but rather stuff I would talk about on the first date, like casually asking "so do you like climbing?" and then setting something up to go climbing together. Also idk if it's like us queers having a tendency to get more invested in our dates than straight people but I've heard so many stories of queer people having such investment in each other so early it's crazy. Like first dates lasting two whole days, queer couples moving in with each other after only a few weeks of dating. Just crazy stuff.

The internet has become such a toxic cesspool of negativity in my life it's really bad. I'm at a point in my life where going on the internet is a painful experience that just makes me feel bad. Especially social media. Like as soon as I start interacting with other people, it just creates a lot of negative feelings to me, and I rarely get anything positive or healthy about it. And I'm honestly glad I'm actually becoming conscious of how it negatively affects my life rather than just trying to force myself to quit it. It's gonna come natural and obvious for me to get rid of these bad habits because they're just bad activities that not only don't make me happy but actively make me unhappy. Candidates of things to get rid of: TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, this forum, and maybe even YouTube. I think I'm going to move this journal to just handwriting, and stop posting it here. I mean I just talked about my life up there, do you see any space for unhealthy social media in it? Absolutely fucking not. Even this forum, I'd consider somewhat negative tbh. Like I posted that "Date Ideas" thread and I just have people shitting all over me and saying they're dumb dates. And it all came from TikTok originally of someone posting these ideas themselves and I thought it'd make for a nice positive conversation but it ends in people shitting on me and making me feel bad. And like I could continue the conversation like this and build a balanced, nuanced, well thought-out date, but that's like a lot of mental and emotional effort and it still made me feel bad, like why would I invest in something that just makes me feel bad. So I'm just gonna have to stop all that shit and move on.

Obviously yeah, the activity has to be compatible with both you and your date, I could've made that clearer. Ok so... full disclosure I've been on mostly vanilla dates (e.g. drinks, restaurant, walking) and not been on any of these more interesting dates (e.g. escape room) that I mentioned up there, I just heard other people tell their stories and relaying it here. My bad, should've made that clear. It was just to get the discussion going and maybe have other people talk about their experiences and some of the dates they've been on. These actually sound really cool, I might try that some time! Was this all in one date? I've had around 30 coffee dates in my life. Not ONE time has it ever led to anything. Drinks on the other hand usually go well at least half the times. I guess some of us really are born with a BAC deficiency of 0.05%... Yeah coffee I feel is typically more of a day-time date too and I feel like that's never really conducive to sex. It's typically more of an indirect date where I'm just trying to get to know my date and see if we can get a second date, where I'll be more direct.

I suggest you read the book Ace, by Angela Chen. Hands down the most comprehensive, brilliant, book about asexuality I've ever read. A lot of the statements you made have nothing to do with asexuality. Also, nothing causes anyone to become asexual, people are born this way and it's perfectly normal. I don't know why people get hung up on asexuality but totally accept heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality. If humans can feel sexually attracted to one kind of people, another kind of people, and all kinds of people, why can't they feel attracted to no kind of people? "Have no desire for close relationships" doesn't make you ace. That might be more aromanticism but not necessarily even that. You might want close relationships with people in general but might never find someone you feel you genuinely want a close relationship with them specifically, which would be aromanticism. "Rarely/Never get lonely", good for you! I'm jealous you feel that way. But that doesn't have to do with either asexuality or aromanticism. Full asexuality is that you don't feel sexual attraction for anyone. You have Greysexuality or grey-asexuality if you feel sexual attraction sometimes, very rarely (typically you can count it on your hand even if you've lived for decades). And you have demisexuality if you feel sexual attraction only after having formed a close emotional bond with someone. All of these are separated from your sex drive and libido, you can be very sex-positive and have a high sex drive while being asexual, sex-neutral or even sex-repulsed, it's completely independent from your sexual attraction. Aromanticism is feeling no romantic attraction. Again you can have a desire for close relationships but never feel that way about a specific person, never having the romantic attraction for anyone in particular. Or you can have no desire. "I'm not attracted to people to any significant degree. Never had a crush on anyone as long as I can remember." This right here would be asexuality. If you've never felt attraction or had a crush on anyone, that's definitely asexuality. "Never really get sexually frustrated." Good for you! Some of us are jealous. Has nothing to do with asexuality again though. Nothing causes anyone to become asexual, and it's perfectly normal. If you have something that you wanna work on, do some introspection, maybe go see a therapist, or anything. Maybe get in touch with other asexuals and ask for their experience and how they feel and all that. That can be helpful.

What prompts you to say that? Can you elaborate? I'd heard about the gel thing before, I actually thought that was the way vasectomies were done. Seems interesting to me and I like that it doesn't really negatively affect sensation at all. I've heard vasectomies make it painful and for a significant period of time. They didn't really go into how the hormonal one works, would have liked to hear it.

Bisexual enby here, I'll be honest I got a little defensive from your title, felt like you were going to say something negative about us. But thankfully you didn't. Lil Nas X came out as bi very recently and I absolutely adore him. He's genuinely like among the most prominent representation we're getting right now. The show Heartsopper that came out last year is also just amazing and an absolute gem of a TV show and representation. Kit Connor, the actor for the bi man of the show, was somewhat forced to come out as bi which none of us like that he was forced but all of us loved him even more for it. There was also David Bowie, whom I'm sure you know, who's just an absolute bicon. Oh and thinking of bicons, the Team Rocket, from Pokémon, absolute bicons as well. That's all I've got off the top of my head, we don't really have that many unfortunately.

I want to imagine like a Peak version of myself. Like I want to imagine who I could be as a person and how I could live my life. I just had this thought that, for me, being non-binary means being someone who embodies both masculinity and femininity, and so I want that to transpire in my life. So let's imagine this, let's imagine a lifestyle in which I can embody that. Firstly, I'm going to keep being a very sporty, outdoorsy kind of person. I'm just started to embrace that this year and it's truly been amazing. Honestly, the quality of my day-to-day life has dramatically improved by this. In practicality, I see it as the following habits: Going to the gym four times a week. In the winter, going skiing almost every week, and potentially in the summer, going hiking almost every week, or doing some other kind of summer sports (maybe some beach volley, or kayak or smth). I've also been thinking about adding some kind of club physical activity, potentially two. I've been thinking about taking some martial art or personal defense class. Like Krav Maga. After 5-10 years I can start being this very tall, very big, very heavy, very strong person who also can defend themselves. There's a very traditionally masculine "strong man" aspect to that, in that physical sense. Couple it with a very masc-presenting style of clothing and a my decently deep voice and that shows that masculinity in that aspect. Secondly, I definitely see myself as an outgoing person. You know growing up I've always felt that I was very introverted but really I was very (still am tbh) traumatized and afraid of other people. But recently I've noticed in myself that when I spend time with other people, it brings me a lot of happiness. I've also decided to be polyamorous so I can see myself dating quite a lot and going on these interesting dates. Thirdly, I definitely see myself as an emotional person. I will definitely feel my emotions and share them with my most intimate partners, even those whom I don't have sexual or romantic relationships with. And this is going to be an important criterium in determining how far the relationship can go. So, even though I can be very masculine, in that physical presentation as well as just my general way of behaving, I can be very feminine in those instances where I become emotionally vulnerable. So let's try to imagine how a given week would go, in that imaginary scenario: Monday, I wake up at 6:15, arrive at work at 7:30, got that sweet SWE job making good money and having just a nice position at the company. Work till noon, at which point I go to the gym, it's Monday, so it's upper body strength day. Back at my desk at 13:30, eat in front of the PC. Then I finish work at 17:30. Back home at 18:30, it's Monday so I don't have any classes or gathering, though I do have a date. We set to meet up at 20:00, I cook lunch for the next day, shower, put on my nice clothes, a little makeup to hide my ugly red face, makeup is not noticeable. It's my first date with this person, we go for drinks, I have water. Date goes how it goes, I can't know how it goes and I don't care, either it goes well or not, really it's not my problem. Tuesday, same work and gym, home at the same time. It's Krav Maga class tonight, starts at 8 again. Always nice to go to Krav Maga and catch up with my KM friends, we should really see each other more often outside of class. But ah well, I'm super busy. Wednesday, same work and gym, I get to hang out with one of my partners tonight. We make love. I never masturbate anymore, because I want to keep my sexual tension with my partners and dates. Thursday, I work from home, because I have therapy at 14:00. It kind of breaks my day completely because I can't take my usual lunch break, and I also can't eat lunch during my lunch break. But therapy is life-saving and a critically important part of my life. Friday night is games night, I get to meet my gamer friends and play some tabletop games, I loooove TT games, they're honestly awesome. I go with all my partners, and then we go to a bar because ... of course we do, it's Friday night! Saturday is time to do some weekly maintenance. I buy the food for the week, I clean the apartment, clean my clothes, do a bit of coding for some open-source projects, and putting in a sprint workout! After all that is done, maybe I play a little video games, or I go hangout with friends and/or partners, too. And then it's Saturday night, I'm definitely doing something. Whether it's my second date with the date from Monday, hanging out with friends, hanging out with a partner, or multiple partners. Or maybe I didn't make plans for the evening and I just go to a bar alone and meet some new people. Sunday is a beautiful sunny day, and I took care of everything, time to relax, chill, breathe, maybe I pop a psychedelic, maybe I meditate a long time, maybe I just go for a long hike up the mountains near me (I mean I do live in Switzerland, like, come on). -- Honestly imagining this, writing this, reading this, I can definitely feel this is the kind of life I see myself living. I have this pretty good job that I enjoy, I have this great social life that brings me people I care about and gives me these great relationship, I have good, healthy, romantic and sexual lives, and I'm even able to pop in some psychedelics to truly make this life special. The next step after this would probably be becoming financially independent, and giving myself time to have a spiritual practice that allows for that level of development. Because I can definitely see that, within that 9-to-5, materialistic social life that I imagined up there, there's really no time for me to develop that spirituality. And maybe I'll have to get there eventually, even if it's in my forties or fifties. I also didn't really incorporate any political life in this vision. Politics is like one of my top values and one of the most important things in my life. The way it's incorporated in this vision right now is just me getting news and talking about them with my friends and partners, but I definitely see myself doing more. In any case, this was really nice to think about. I liked it a lot.

So grandma's coming over. I tried telling her no, but she wouldn't take no for answer. I don't really blame her, there's literally no excuse for her not to come. Well, except for the fact that I don't want her seeing my apartment like this. But see, if the reason is "I have a secret", I can't tell her "I have a secret, therefore you can't come". It's ... too hard for me to clean up the apartment. Genuinely. I tried, I started, but after a little while my ankle started hurting badly and I thought I'd just give up. So I'm gonna have to live with the consequences of my own actions. Let my grandmother see how incredibly dirty the apartment is. I don't know how she'll react, I don't know if she'll tell anyone, who's she gonna tell, how they'll react. I can try to ask her to not tell anyone but ... idk. I will tell her that my life has not been great and I've been trying to get better by doing various things but that cleaning the apartment definitely fell by the wayside and is something that's been really hard for me to do. Quick check-in with my feeling right now. I feel grief, fatigue, sadness, I feel like I got some weight in my chest, and in my throat, just cried one tear. I hope I grow from this experience. This will be the first time someone from my family sees the full extent of how dirty my apartment can be. I don't think I've ever been this vulnerable with anyone, and, though I'm scared, maybe something positive comes from it.

Do you see a therapist?

Ugggghhhhhhh .... So I sprained my ankle, now I've got this kind of boot thing on my leg and I have to use crutches. Which is fine, not a huge problem for me. But there's this other thing. My grandma called, she wants to come over and take care of me. But the thing is, she can't come over. The apartment is an absolute dump. And I mean this. There are loads of trash everywhere. Everywhere! It is HORRIBLE! I absolutely have to tell her no but like ... there's no excuse I have no excuse no reason, it just sucks. I can't tell her "well you can't come because my apartment is a dumpster". I HATE EVERYTHING!

I wore a shirt at Christmas and now my family thinks I'm gay. The shirt has a rainbow on it, therefore I must be gay, I guess! It baffles me. I can't even wear shirts I like anymore.

First time I'm seeing this thread. Very interesting, seems promising. I've done some research on depression and I've heard some psychiatrists start to acknowledge that depression is not only mental but there's also a physiological component. So, it's great to hear you're handling that Vitamin D.

Your friendly reminder that the only true war is the class war. Also I broke my ankle yesterday and now I have a boot I have to wear 24/7 for six weeks Also I've learned of a kind of depression I think I may possibly have.

I'm so anxious, it's so bad... Yesterday I went grocery shopping, as you do. I ended up looking for one item I typically don't buy. And so I walk in this like middle path looking around at the different aisles looking for the stuff. Now, since I'm looking for my stuff, I walk a bit slower than usual. And I can feel these two people behind me walking faster than me, so I end up panic-walking into an aisle I KNOW doesn't have my stuff, just to leave THEM space to walk through. THIS IS HOW BAD MY ANXIETY IS!

Out of curiosity, what do the three medications you take do?

I think it's just a question of they don't want to overprescribe. They'll prescribe but only when it's absolutely necessary. They'd probably prescribe to you but probably not to me.

Where I live here in Switzerland, from what I know (and I may be wrong), it doesn't feel like psychiatrists are really big on drugs. They prefer working on the trauma directly and making lifestyle changes rather than taking drugs.

Had a pretty insightful dream last night. The setting was me and my family going skiing. I had to go buy the tickets to the ski lift in like a very specific place it was weird. So I end up in a situation where I see someone set down a sock full of coins, that they intended to use to beat someone up. Then someone else comes and essentially steals it, starts walking away and I'm getting violent vibes from this guy (of course it was a guy). So I stand up to him and yell "Hey! You put that back" and he throws it at me, I dodge it. I go pick it up and now literally everyone in the building yells at me and blames me for starting a commotion, I run away out of the building and try to hide the weapon. Then I come back in the building and someone very authoritative tells me to just go buy my tickets and leave. So I try to go up and buy my tickets and I just can't because it's locked, I end up knocking and saying "heeeey" through the door and finally I'm able to get my tickets. Then I woke up. And the feeling I had left was "I stood up for what was right and got punished, scared, and ran away". Story of my fucking life.

I was forced to quit coffee in 2020 when we were in lockdown, I couldn't leave my home and I just didn't have a coffee machine at home. First day back at the office, I tried. It made me feel horrible. I had a stomachache, a headache, my head was also just like spinning, I couldn't focus, and I felt my heart beat through my chest. Never again. I quit alcohol voluntarily though, after going like 5 years of getting drunk literally every day. Just one evening decided not to drink for the rest of my life. Didn't have depression or really anything, it was one of the easiest things I've ever done actually. Didn't have to ease into it, didn't have to do anything, just stopped drinking completely. How long did you go without drinking coffee? Maybe a good idea is to go like 90 days without coffee, see if you're still depressed after that. If you are, it might be a good idea to go see a therapist. There are therapists that actually specialize on substance abuse, because yeah getting depressed over the long run from not having coffee is very much caffeine addiction.

What do you mean "overtraining"? Like ... too much gym?

Hi all, I started taking maca every day as part of my protein shake that I drink after going to the gym and then after a few months I stopped taking both the shake and the maca because ... it just kinda happened I stopped buying them idk. But I've realized my libido is suuuper low now, like I'm almost never in the mood, it's crazy. At first I thought I'd just gotten used to the heightened libido from maca and I just need to get used to my normal libido, but now I just feel like it's at the point where I have no libido at all. Did I accidentally create a dependence on maca to have any sex drive?

This is exactly how I've been using ChatGPT for programming. I don't bother writing boring code when I could just write a few sentences and have it written for me very quickly. I have 3D artist friends who've also been using AI for years exactly for this purpose. Oh we need a texture for XYZ, easy I'll just generate one. Done! Be curious to hear your reasoning on this. Using a bike means living within biking distance, aka 30 minutes at most. Also people on bikes means less traffic, less traffic means people move faster. Also not everyone's going to switch to bikes, public transport exists. Also it's not like the work day's going to shorten because people are biking to work like ???

Do you mean man as in gender or man as in human being? It looks like you mean gender, but I wanna make sure. In any case, I don't think I could help because I've decided to be non-binary. Also, I was never a good man in the first place. EDIT: Perhaps we could say a good man always thinks he doesn't know anything.

Don't mind me, I'm just writing my notes here for my research into getting a therapist. Probably one of the most important ingredients to successful therapy is a good Patient-Therapist Alliance. AKA you gotta have good vibes. Demographics of the therapist: The gender, the age, the religion, the ethnicity may play a role. I like to think I'm above all that and I treat everyone as equal, except for the religion stuff I don't like religious people. TBH I'd love to have a therapist of color because there's a lot fewer of them. Goals of Therapy: A lot of therapists ask prospective patients what their goals are with the therapy to determine if they're the right fit. Examples include healing childhood trauma, dealing with substance abuse, that kind of stuff. Methods of Therapy: Basically there are different ways to do therapy that are designed to do various things Psychodynamic Therapy: If I believe there is a subconscious motivation or childhood trauma linked to my behavior (I would say so yeah) Cognitive Therapy: Change your thoughts to change your life Narrative, Behavioral, or Solution-Oriented Therapy: Never talk about childhood, focusing on current day-to-day life Family-Oriented Systems Therapy: (I believe this has been mentioned even on the blog, IFS therapy), to deal with family stuff (I'd say that would be useful too, my relationship with my family is not great) Disclaimer: This is likely a non-exhaustive list and also those were massive oversimplification. Questions to ask a prospective therapist: Many therapists have a free phone-call session before booking the first "real" session just as a test instead of jumping directly in without knowing if it's a good fit. This is a great opportunity to ask them questions. Here are example questions: How often would you anticipate seeing me? What is a typical session like and how long are they? How do I prepare for my sessions? What's your general philosophy and approach to helping? What kind of homework or reading do you give to your patients if any? I am bisexual and non-binary, how do you feel about that? There are two things to look for in their answers to these questions: 1) If the actual content of their response is satisfactory to you (aka they're accepting my gender and sexuality) 2) If they show warmth, genuineness, comfort, empathy, compassion, and just a general good vibe in how they deliver their responses