falling-star
10d ago
Make sure you stay on top of eating hearty foods my man. The dex makes it too easy to skimp, and you need nourishment to power through the stress. I've gone through ambitious stretches before fueled mostly by speed, it's really easy to hollow yourself out. Be strong.
falling-star
10d ago
Yeah I cook. Probably 6 or so times a week now that I'm unemployed and living off savings.
The way I learned how to cook was to pick certain dishes I liked, make the bare minimum version of them, then gradually increase complexity by adding more and more ingredients. I naturally picked up how certain ingredients behaved over time. I'm pretty great at making a steak now, and I can make a variety of sides to go with it.
Eventually I get bored of even food I like. I find AI is helpful there. You can ask it for other things you can do with the same base, or different sides/sauces to make.
I live alone. I cook for myself. When I do I do it in batches for at least 3 servings. Sometimes my friends come by unannounced and eat my food. Always have people lining up whenever I make a pot of stew. Stew is good with a dutch oven, just takes forever. If you're just starting though, either bake stuff in an oven tray or fry it in a pan. Keep it simple, add complexity as you get comfortable.
falling-star
10d ago
Things are alright.
- Been consistently tracking my calories. Hitting 3k a day most days, shitting like crazy, but making gym gains.
- Wrote a motte post I've been thinking of for a while. Pleasantly surprised all the social conservatives aren't shitting on it.
- Gearing up to talk to chicks and shoot shots at events soon. There's a likely lass that's coming to small gathering with my friends. Maybe we'll hit it off.
falling-star
10d ago
IME the athletic brewing co IPA is the most beerlike fake beer. Every other fake beer I've tried is way too watery. It was helpful in reining in my severe drinking a few years ago.
falling-star
12d ago
How old are you and what region are you in? I'd say lots of hope. The underground scene is a subset of the above ground one. Almost everyone in the underground scene will go to big public events in your area. Find a place where there's ravey vibes (rough estimate, presence of cat ears and people on drugs in colorful outfits). Go there and talk to people. Ask "Do you know about any smaller stuff coming up".
If you want more personalized advice, happy to help. Shoot me a DM
falling-star
12d ago
That sounds more like a nightclub problem than what underground events are like. In a house the music is generally in just one room. If you want to chat hang out in the kitchen.
falling-star
12d ago
Poor social skills are a detriment anywhere but the raver scene tends to be more accepting of neurodivergents. You'll find plenty of other autistic types, but they tend to be more extroverted than the median autist.
falling-star
12d ago
Raves, The Scene, Community and Belonging
A common refrain is that third spaces are dead. There's no where to go and meet people outside work and school. This applies to both romance and platonic friends. You can go and try to meet people at bars, but most people are there with the friends they already have. You can talk to women, but they're default closed off. Any conversation feels like a blatant advance. When I moved to my city a few years ago this was the situation I found myself in. I had some friends, but I wasn't making more. And I was hardly ever meeting new women.
Enter raves. I had always been a hard rock/heavy metal sort of guy[1], but I was open to EDM. I was no stranger to drug use either. So when an electronic music enjoying friend invited me to a club night with a famous DJ, I went. Long story short, I made nice with other attendees and got invited to an underground event.
The median underground event sits somewhere between a house party and a proper nightclub. Half the time it's at someone's house. The other half the time it's at an issolated location on public land. Nominally we're all there to dance to music, but it's normal to spend half your time chilling on the sidelines. That's where the socialization happens and The Scene is formed.
It's hard to convey how much better the vibe is than a standard bar/club. Events are either free or charge a small door fee. You can almost always bring your own alcohol. You know nobody is making real money off you, and that changes the dynamic. Instead of being a resource to be extracted you're a desired guest. And that changes how people act. People fall over themselves to help with the physical labor of setting up the event. Someone's always bringing free food to outdoor events, and gifting trinkets to strangers is rampant.
The other nice thing is it's not atomized. The space and crowd is small enough that you'll run into the same guys repeatedly. This gives you more chances to connect. On a broader scale, the same people generally come to underground events. You'll frequently see people you've met before. At a normal "popular" bar you defacto have one chance to make such a good impression on someone that they decide to contact you. It's an uncomfortably high threshold. If you're having a bad day or the other person is distracted, the chance is lost. At undergound raves, you can run into the same person multiple times and slowly build up to friendship or romance.
Once I got into this, I started dragging my friends along to every event. I had two friends who were single and unhappy. Within a year they both got gfs through the scene. I've had a little less luck, but there have been some dance floor makeouts and numbers exchanged. Infinitely more than what I had before. And I've made deep platonic friendships. Less concretely, even people outside the scene seem to respect me more. The fact that some crowd likes me proves I'm not a total loser I guess.
My broader point?
Third spaces are in decline, but this scene remains. EDM isn't my favorite kind of music. About a third of the ravers I talk to admit EDM isn't their favorite but they love the community. I honestly believe this is the only community available to me. Where else do I regularly meet people 18-35 in a social setting when I'm out of college and I work from home? The stereotypical advice is meet up groups and hobbies. Well meet up groups are alright. Most hobby groups have the problem that they're either gender lopsided, or small. You're not guaranteed to find someone you vibe with deeply in an 8 person knitting club.
I wonder how this will progress. Gen Z drowns in ennui and isolation. I saw a meme a while ago of a picture from the early 2000s. It showed a nerdy guy and a cute girl making strong eye contact, holding beers at a house party. The caption was "This is what they took from you". I don't know if the average zoomer knows they can still have that. That was me a few days ago. It's not lost.
Other sub cultures and scenes have been destroyed by the internet and modernity. Raving continues somehow. (I'm young and not super knowledgeable about the history of electronic music. Older mottebros please chime in). Part of this I think is all the drugs. You don't have to do drugs to be a raver, but you absolutely need to tolerate people being high around you [2]. This provides some level of costly buy in that separates it from mainstream culture. My tentative theory is that the desire for a space where you can semi openly use drugs provides a constant incentive towards holding underground shows. This could be a load bearing part of the third space's continued existence. The other factor is ~40% of scene members are broke. The need to save money drives people to the cheaper house shows. I had rich tech bro friends once that liked electronic music. They'd go to expensive festivals and exclusive clubs, but they never got community out of it and complained of alienation.
Another strange thread to pull on is the scenes relationship with the internet. Internet culture is super prevalent, but it co-exists neatly with the scene. Anime inspired fashion is everywhere. Animal ears and tails proliferate. BDSM and other fetishes well represented among the chronically online are out in the open. It's common for people to go by a nickname, which is often their instagram handle. I know a girl who answers just as quickly to "Sunsprite" as her given name.
I know roughly that ravers were early adopters of the internet. Right now the core organizing infastructure is Instagram. If you ask for someone's contact info that's what you get. Flyers for events are posted there. They all say "DM for address". Once you do, they scan your follows list and pictures to make sure you're "in the community".
As a closing thought, there's ongoing tension about "gentrifiers" and "frat bros". People who come into the scene for the drugs and music, but disrespect the underlying culture. There's a strain of thought that "raves are for everyone". I generally adhere to that. When just a few frat bros show up, I make an effort to initiate them into the culture. They're almost always receptive. When a large group of them shows up though, they're not interested in assimilating and they tend to hijack the vibe of the party. This is just the immigration debate lol.
[1] Why not join the punk/metal scene instead? I gave it a try. At least here it's all rich kids cosplaying as poor, militantly far left, and filled with prodigious amounts of coke and rum. Somehow raving is better for my life expectancy.
[2] From the rules on a recent house show: "No open hard drug use inside. There are woods out back. Have some fucking class."
falling-star
14d ago
It's a progressive state thing to also give the father some time off to spend with their newborn. It's in addition to maternity leave.
falling-star
15d ago
Hey bro, also bulking after a hard fight gaining weight. How much are you shitting? I feel like I'm shitting all the time on the bulk. I'm getting a good chunk of my protein and carbs from fruit smoothies with protein powder. Maybe shifting some calories to liquid will make it easier to drop volume to sleep. My sleep quality has gone down also, but I'm eating up to an hour until I go to bed.
falling-star
17d ago
Been tracking my calories more consistently after enlisting a friend to expect daily screenshots. Up 3 pounds in the last month. Trying to lock in for a yearly event at the end of the month. The past two times I've been it was full of girls my type and in my league.
My progress on squats is unreal. I'm already back to struggling to fit into jeans. Daily fruit smoothies with a fuck ton of protein powder might have solved my previous lifting bottleneck.
falling-star
26d ago
I think to some level it makes tactical sense for progressives to be selective here. Media has reach and shapes culture. It shapes what people think is OK, normal, etc. If you have a fixed outrage budget to force people to be more progressive, do you burn it on improving the working conditions of thousands or changing the media consumption of millions?
falling-star
1mo ago
Kansai is depicted as the most attractive and stable. I'm thinking Yaku is best girl. Pros: Earnest, looks up to a friend, writes bad web fiction (relatable), can smoke weed with. Cons: Addicted to heroin. My issue with Hame is that she's blatantly fake.
falling-star
1mo ago
I feel like I listen to too much angsty/"sad boy music" and want to get into stuff with happier vibes. What's some new stuff to listen to? I generally like hard rock/metal and electronic, but I'm open to anything. I value lyrical complexity a lot, which I think has kept me away from trying most pop.
falling-star
1mo ago
If you don't have a religious thing against wanking, just wank a few times to your imagination. If you do, focus that energy into trying to get laid. If you're really no sex til marriage... Idk bro, figure out how to sublimate it. Being horny is lowkey a mild stimulant. Deal with the distraction and reap the added energy.
falling-star
1mo ago
Oof. If that's what you really want then get rich and have a mail order bride. Otherwise settle for non-virgin, leaving somewhat under your own influence like the rest of us.
falling-star
1mo ago
Hmm, I don't know you that well, or what you struggle with. I'd say generally writing yourself off as a loss in a big area is a recipe for unhappiness. You can be pretty dysfunctional and still do OK. Plenty of guys I know are scrapping by paycheck to paycheck or odd job to odd job, and they have steady live in 6/10 gfs. In the modern age, you don't really have to fully financially support a girl, more like 50% support her.
Sorting your stuff out can also happen faster than you think. You don't have to solve everything, just figure out enough coping mechanisms and strategies to get what you want. If you really try you can change a lot in just a year or two. And if you're worried about the age gap, plenty of asian girls look your type into their early thirties. You got options man.
Sorry for Wellness Wednesday posting in the Fun Friday thread. But almost everyone can grow into being able to get what they want. Denying that is just choosing familiarity over happiness.
falling-star
1mo ago
I've been watching Chain Smoker Cat recently and it's a lot of fun. It's the first time in years I've watched something as it came out. In the age of streaming and binging, I forgot the excitement of a new episode dropping. It's nice to have a thing to look forwards to each week.
falling-star
1mo ago
I don't know how old you are now man, but if you're relatively young there are still plenty of adult women with adolescent vibes and appearance. Idk if that partially does it for you, but giving up on sex entirely isn't a recipe for a healthy life.
falling-star
1mo ago
I feel confused by all the assertions that women are peak attractive at 16. My physical preference tends to be 22-23. I can't judge age very well, but the girls I'm most into keep turning out that way. I wonder if it's purely physical or if it's a demeanor thing.
falling-star
1mo ago
I thought that was her
falling-star
1mo ago
Tracked my calories 6 out of the past 7 days. Actually reaching 3k feels like a fucking crusade. Unpleasant conclusion I'm coming to is I need to halve my caffeine intake to make eating easier. Ordered a food scale. My gym buddies have been super unmotivated lately so I might just switch back to a solo 5x5 routine.
falling-star
1mo ago
I'm working on writing something too, with the direct expectation it's going to Royal Road and will never be formally published. Include me in the shoutout cabal.
falling-star
1mo ago
Tonight I got a harsh reminder that house party/illegal show reputation has a very low transference to club environments. Oof. Something to learn from, no where near resting on my laurels yet.
Saw in another post you're taking GLP-1s. You might want to put that on hold while you get through this current ambitious stretch. Avoid overextension.
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