self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
A friend to everyone is a friend to no one.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
A phone. Earphones in their case. A vape. Liquid for the vape. My hopes and dreams in the rear pocket, so I can sit on them.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
Gay pubs are absolutely not the right venue to meet women, but I don't really go there to meet women. I go there for for the booze, and because that's where a few of my non-work friends live and try to die.
I meet women the old-fashioned way: on dating apps or at work. Well, at least one of those is lindy. I will ignore the monthly arranged marriage my dutiful elderly parents drop on my doorstep like a mouse missing a head.
Women without emotional baggage? Where does one find one of those? They clearly aren't looking for psychiatrists.
Jokes aside, I am dating someone with just enough to fit in the carry-on allowance. And we go to places other than gay clubs. I just had a lovely day with her at Loch Lomond.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
It seems to me that your chief complaint is that I'm too secure in my masculinity. Uh, what am I supposed to be doing about that? No, seriously. I have few qualms about hanging out with gay people or in gay spaces, or both at the same time, because I genuinely don't particularly care how that comes across. It's clearly not affecting anything IRL. God knows most women would prefer their would be husbands be more like gay men in some regards, as long as they don't actually sleep with other men.
I'm not entirely straight myself, but from observing, listening to, and reading the accounts of fully heterosexual men, any kind of sexual contact with another male is gross and disturbing
.... Fellas? Is it gay to kiss your homies goodnight? Oh, only if you use tongue?
I don't really care that a drunk dude, in a gay bar, pinched my ass. I laughed and waved him off. If he'd gone further, I would have made it very clear that his approaches were unwelcome. If he still kept it up, his nose might have a quick date and breakup with my fist. It's never gone that far, because gay men aren't barbarians. A polite "very kind of you to like me, but you're wasting your time" is usually met with laughs and/or apologies.
Some straight men would be more physical and angry about things, but you wouldn't catch them in gay spaces either.
And now, if you're postulating that this is some kind of weird fetish? All I can do is sigh and turn off my phone. Or just go to sleep, because I need the alarm in the morning.
Aren't you in a (presumably monogamous) relationship with a woman?
I don't think anyone has started taking testosterone while I wasn't looking.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
Don't you start growing a sense of humor on me. It's upsetting and unnatural.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
Do you think my "jokes" about feeling like it's time for me to settle down and have a wife and kids are just jokes? They aren't.
I am acutely aware of the risks of pushing these things too far. I only need to look at that uncle of mine for a good example of the worst case scenario. By his accounting, a lothario in his 20s and 30s, then turning 50 and feeling awfully fucked and lonely (not mutually exclusive things). To his credit, he did try. He was married to a woman for a year, and she had BPD.
To my credit, while I was with my ex with BPD, I had the brains to not marry her. Despite being intensely in love with her, and seeing a future together. If she hadn't been crazy, I would have been married with kids.
In other words, if you're telling me to settle down, you're preaching to the choir. That's been the plan for several years. The hard part is finding someone who I think fits the bill. The good news is that that's going well. I'd like to be a good husband and father, and not just in possession of more than my fair share of dad jokes. If I need examples, I just have to look at my dad and my grandpa.
You might ask where the delay arises? Well, you try marrying when you're in such a transitional stage of your life, rather unmoored geographically. It's not easy. I met someone I could see myself marrying last year, and as predictably as I had feared, geography ended things.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
I'd left my coat in the closet. Next to the real skeleton I owned in med school. I mean, I do own one still, it's just a bit hard to access.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
I find it modestly amusing, until someone like @Amadan comes in and misses the running joke. It's been known to happen.
More importantly, ego boosts from male compliments can be real, but should be downscaled. To quote myself:
As wise men have said: if you're struggling on the local dating apps, it might not be your fault and there's hope for you yet. But if you go to a gay bar and don't get hit on, it might be time to see if monasteries are recruiting.
If I wanted to brag about women, I would brag about women. I'm too busy doing other things to them.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
I noticed that error, and also expected that you'd be here to correct me before I could get to amending it. In return, I can recommend Dyson Sphere Program as something that might be to your taste. You might even learn to build that Space Elevator that's your true calling. To code.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
11d ago
But, there are exceptions. I'm not sure where this becomes relevant, and I suspect you've already reached this section if you're in the last third of the book:
I told the lady whose sleep I interrupted by typing away furiously defending my sexuality at 3 am that I was furiously defending my sexuality at 3 am.
She looked at me knowingly, and declared "SMH, you're a bit flamboyant."
I told her: "that's not the same thing as being a singing man, Kathleen" and took away the duvet. She took it back. I can never win. If I do win these things, I must go join the other men.
I have heard people use the term "fag hag" in online discourse, but I've only run into "hag" and "fag" and "packets of cigarettes" IRL. I have no idea if that's a slur, but gay people have never shied away from calling themselves things the straights can't call them without offense.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
And your wife doesn't understand you, and you're only staying together for the sake of the kids, and you're getting that divorce any day now, honest, so just keep hanging on while we have this affair, O mistress mine. Yep, I believe you!
Now then, I have expressed fondness for older women, but while I might be visiting Ireland out of boredom, no need to go that far. I like you for your brains ma'am.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
I well understand why people might suspect I'm gay. I find it amusing, really, since at least to my own satisfaction, I'm as zero on the Kinsey scale as one can get. Adjusting for the kind of floating point error you wouldn't notice on a pride float.
Am I offended when people online suspect I'm gay? Not really. If I cared, I wouldn't supply the material. I'm more annoyed when people take my rather definitive declarations that I'm straight as evidence of denial. Gee, the dude who regularly writes essays about falling in and out of love with women is gay, is all I can say to them. Bisexuality is a harder to adjudicate diagnosis of exclusion, but we've moved past the ICD-10 paraphilia era.
I can only sigh in exasperation. If I regularly defend gay and bisexual subcultures against attack, it would take a particular form of intransigent self delusion to not acknowledge tendencies to join them. I don't acknowledge them because they don't exist
Honestly, there's are plenty of prosaic reasons I hang around with gay people. I started going to a gay pub entirely by accident (I have that essay about the shock of realizing it's a gay pub, I'm not very observant at times), and picked up gay friends. This well predated my brother coming out, but might have contributed to him feeling comfortable doing so. He could see I was more than comfortable treating gay people as human beings, though I can only hope that he had enough reason to trust me before that. Humans are weird like that, he could have told me a decade back and I'd have had his back, that's what brothers are for.
What else? Those environments are, as you suggested, quite novel to me. And there's always some drama going on, I pack my own popcorn. I also appreciate that they're quite understanding and accepting spaces, not that that's for my own benefit. I do not like moral busybodies, not that you can't find them there too.
More recently, I'm seeing a (straight) woman heavily enmeshed in the culture. She dragged me to a drag queen night the first date (I went willingly, I was just curious), and her best friend is a gay influencer. That kinda constrains the option space for me, you know, not that I particularly mind. If there's booze and people to tell me about their mental health issues, I'm content. You only get one of the two at work.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
The latter.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
Cities: Skylines 2 (build cities) Mini Motorways (draw road networks) Freeways (draw highway interchanges)
I'm surprised you play other genres.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
I have interacted with bears. But politely, and from a respectful distance. It's the twinks you have to watch out for.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
It is a bit? I would hope that's blazingly obvious my man. Would you prefer I start throwing in "/s"? I find that approach crass.
I think you know me well enough that you should believe me when I say that if I had any real desire to engage in happy fun times with another man, there's nothing stopping me. Why don't I? Because I don't care to.
I am not gay. I am not a bisexual in denial. I like putting penis in vagina. I have the self-awareness to find it rather amusing that I find it fun to hang around gay people. I have been accused of having the musical taste of a gay man, but then again, they're the Jews of the music industry (let's not talk about the gay Jews).
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
Your objections to LLM-assisted writing has always been more aesthetic than otherwise. I have no argument that can change your mind about that, and I've tried. But at least we are in line about the pragmatic things.
AI is incredibly useful. And more so every damn day. If Terence Tao is increasingly reliant on it, I am impressed by how some of our forum denizens can find little utility for it in their lives. Good for them, I'm sure they're saving money on a paid plan.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
I haven't been able to access the models on their free plan, which means I have no opinion. I've heard people I respect say it's a bit benchmark-maxxed, but the fuck would I know myself?
All I can say is that I don't see a particular use case for it. I have paid plans for ChatGPT and Max for Claude. Those have the bleeding edge models, and I always use the best I can get away with it. I rarely (but not never) need token-churning agentic work, where $/task is a strong constraint. I technically retain access to Gemini 3.1 Pro, but it is a sad model, and I'm not going to touch the family till they fix things with 3.5 Pro.
Chinese models are, in general, not very useful for me. I don't need them. I used R1 etc back when they did something useful for me, and I haven't been tempted back in the last half year.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
You object to many things, dear sir, and they're rarely to be believed. We'll see what the judge has to say about it.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12d ago
Now ma'am, let's review the evidence like good Bayesians. I spend most of my drinking hours at a gay pub. My friends here skew overwhelmingly LGBTQ: my closest friend in the area is an asexual lesbian (a contradiction in terms, though she reports only 90% confidence, down from 99%, so the market is moving, and I might be to praise/blame for rehabilitating men). The regulars assumed I was in a relationship with a bisexual man. I was not. I just tolerate him because he's a good guy who looked after me during a bad stretch, which I gather is what relationships are, but never mind.
Further data: my younger brother came out to me as gay. At least five independent observers have seen photos of a distant shrink uncle and rendered the verdict "this dude is so gay it hurts." I wear nice Chelsea boots, and spent my first months in this city genuinely puzzled as to why obviously gay men kept complimenting them. I may have written an ethnographic analysis in a gay pub.
Any reasonable model, fed these inputs, converges on one conclusion. And yet:
I was also offered, variously, two blowjobs, a rimjob, and a golden shower. I declined with gratitude. It is good to be desired. It is also good to have boundaries.
I have been propositioned dozens of times, across various states of sobriety, by men. The answer remains no. I appreciate the interest, truly. But I love women, an affliction exactly as inconvenient as it sounds, and one for which medical science has no treatment. My sole consolation is that they like me back.
Says the guy hanging out in a gay bar for Pride
(I was in Glasgow to see a woman. She was busy, so I killed time at... gay bars.)
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
13d ago
They took my pennies from me.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
13d ago
Can't let Count do all the work, can I?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
13d ago
If by "time" you mean the Heath Death of the universe. I'm painfully straight, as in I'm straight and it causes me pain.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
13d ago
I got my bum pinched, visiting a gay bar on the day of the Pride Parade in Glasgow. It was more bemusing than offensive. TBH, I'm not offended at all, I went to one of most famous/notorious gay bars, and I was well groomed and wearing pointy shoes. Dunno what the women are complaining about.
I'd give someone carrying a knife a questioning look, but wouldn't worry past that. As you can see from this thread, some men have strange hobbies. I'll live in peace, as long as it's not a machete or a Bowie knife.
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