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Wellness Wednesday for October 4, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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How did partnered Mottizens meet their partners? I appreciate all responses but more detail is more interesting, e.g. “we sat next to each other in our second year chemical engineering course and bonded by venting about our terrible professor” is more interesting than “college.”

We initially became acquainted while preparing for an exam that would let us practise in the UK as doctors. Once we passed it, we had free time on our hands, and ended up deciding to do a research paper for our portfolio, only to have that trip out to talk to professors turn into a dinner date, and then we ended up finding a slot for the next exam earlier than anticipated, and so we ended up traveling to the UK for a month, almost ready to murder each other after living in close quarters with nothing to do but study.

It's just been our first anniversary, so I can only suppose it worked out.

Work. My senior colleague quit, I got promoted, she was hired to fill my old position. She would often come to my desk to ask work-related questions and instead of taking a chair or bending down would kneel to look at my screen. One day I impulsively slapped her butt when she did that and told her to take a chair and sit down like a normal human being. Didn't get slapped in return, reasoned that I had a chance with her. Invited her to a movie later.

Man, the olden times really did used to be different.

The good old aughties.

Wow, you're a lucky man. Either that, socially oblivious, or extremely risk tolerant. Congratulations, I suppose.

I agree, that was a lucky impulse. I'm generally extremely risk averse

Tinder.

College.

She joined an academic/social club I was already a member of. One tradition was for new members to spend all their time during a couple weeks in a library study room when they weren't in class to bond, older members would bounce in and out. I attribute this absolutely gorgeous woman falling for me primarily to that context: I had all the social proof in the universe right there, everyone knew me and in an academic context I came across pretty alpha.

She basically formed a plan to break me up with my mediocre then-gf and sleep with me. She is very goal oriented. I initially did not see her as an appropriate sexual target because of the context, and was fairly oblivious, thought we were just becoming really good friends. She joked to a friend years later, when she thought I couldn't hear, that she was like a falcon and I was like a rabbit running across a field.

Within a year of beginning to date, she has reserved (her first initial)(my last name)@gmail. She knew what she wanted, and she got it.

My god feminine agency is hot. I hope your wife is teaching this behaviour to the next generation.

Within a year of beginning to date, she has reserved (her first initial)(my last name)@gmail. She knew what she wanted, and she got it.

Adorable.

I asked her out in high school. LDS so good dating culture imo.

We were in the same Peace Corps cohort. He kept inviting me on romantic outings to visit various walled cities and ruined castles.

We met at a Church youth conference. The conference put all the youth in different groups (EFY for anyone LDS or adjacent) of various ages - I redshirted myself into the 14-16 group as a 16 year old so I could be the oldest, as opposed to being youngest in 16-18 group. My (now wife) was 14. We took a photo together! She was from a city 6 hours away, lost contact. The next year, she was in my sisters group and confessed that she had a crush on me...

Fast forward, I'm in my early 20s and happen to end up in her older brothers congregation. We become friends, and I make a joke about dating his sister. He mentions this to her, phone numbers get exchanged, she comes to my house and I make (very soggy) grilled cheese sandwiches for her and a friend. 9 months later we're married and we're coming up on our 8 year anniversary.

Met at a partner dance event. Danced a few times, had mutual friends. Bonded over both being new to the dance relative to said friends.

OMG another dancer! Amazing! Which styles do you dance?

Salsa (LA, Cuban and NY), bachata (sensual) and kizomba (traditional). I recently taught myself to call rueda which I'm really enjoying.

I've also dabbled in lindy hop, zouk and forro in the past. I figure I'll learn tango when I'm old.

What's your dancing background?

Fancy! Latin dances are always fun.

I started with the ballroom 10 dance in college so I've done mambo, cha-cha, rumba, jive as well as the fancier tango foxtrot waltz etc. I actually did salsa dancing a bit in college, but it was a bit tough to break into the social crowd for me sadly.

For social dancing I started mostly with east coast swing/blues and fusion. Sadly the pandemic killed those scenes in my area, but have been doing a lot of west coast swing. Dipping my toes into zouk since it's getting pretty popular.

I don’t think I would ever get a female roommate… Apparently for you it went very well, but it definitely has the potential to go badly, including in ways that at first appeared to be going very well.