Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll definitely consider it.

Yeah, I’m never going to vote for any Republicans or spoiler candidates. I will say though, the complex labyrinthine mess of lies and ideologies that only exist to entrench the power of those at the top at everyone else’s peril is impressive.

I was raised by emotionally abusive right-wingers and had to spend my entire childhood fighting antisocial bullshit theories about how I shouldn’t be allowed to show emotions or kindness and I should treat the opposite gender like trash.

I literally hated myself for years until someone sincerely complimented me for said kindness, as much as I tried to hide it. It was so surprising to me that I opened up to her about my insecurities. She shattered my entire worldview and gently told me to stop listening to the dummies who convinced me to hate myself, because they themselves were miserable people who would only drag me down with them.

The level of stupidity from the GOP kept rising (the COVID conspiracies were among the dumbest things I had ever seen) and I realized that she was right. These people were promoting utter nonsense, and I had been conned. There was no reason for any of these norms; they were just carried by generational inertia and promoted by grifters.

In the years following, I developed strong left-wing values and learned that all of the dumb social hierarchy stuff just serves those in power. They promote hatred and bigotry for their own gain. They are the reason for my childhood being shitty. Their entire movement is one big scam.

I aspire to be a total sweetheart and a supportive, loving friend, because that’s what I truly want. Billionaires HATE it when you help people for free. Giving people things to fulfill their needs, doing favors out of love and compassion, being there in times of emotional need…

I mean, could you imagine how terrible it would be for billionaires if those ideas became widespread? They wouldn’t like that. Nooo! Don’t work together! Keep fighting each other! Uh, here, read this news article based on a single ragebait Twitter post that PROVES your neighbors hate you! And look, here’s a tweet from billionaire genius Elon Musk saying your attitude is destroying the country! We NEED artificial scarcity! Don’t you want to go to Mars? STOP HELPING EACH OTHER!!

Whatever I end up doing, I hope I can touch a lot of hearts and minds while doing so. After all, it only took one person’s kindness to literally change my life.

You’re right, I’ve definitely been doomscrolling way too much.

I think the biggest thing holding me back is the idea that it is too late to do anything because my life could effectively be over in less than a few months. I see lots of people dooming about fascist purges and the end of societal function and think, “Well, how do I know for sure that they’re wrong? I don’t know enough about society to make a solid prediction either way.”

And so my brain thinks “There is a reasonable chance that my life is over (or at least the ladder to make any life progress gets pulled up) in a few months. If everything I do is all for naught, then why bother?” It’s a belief that I have no long-term agency.

I think that in order to move forward, I have to disprove the idea of me being targeted in a fascist purge and complete economic collapse happening anytime soon with reasonable certainty. Are those sound predictions, or are they just nightmares dreamt up by a bunch of armchair historian doomers exaggerating how quickly these things happen? Is the theory that the “day one mass deportations” include all known political dissidents actually possible, or are the logistics too insane to work? That’s what I have to figure out, or else I will likely continue to believe that I am helpless.

In other words, I think it’s quite plausible that I’m reading misinformation, but the fact that I don’t know it for sure is preventing me from dismissing it outright.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply!

I’m calling my relatives right now to see if they can help, but other than that, no.

It’s the latter.

Arguably a stupid mistake in retrospect, but all I said was that genocide against LGBTQ+ people is evil because genocide is evil, period.

I believed that opposing genocide was still in the Overton window and they hadn’t gone full fash yet.

But then they told me who they really were.

That’s when they began to constantly accuse me of voting for Harris. Because I opposed the mass killing of innocent people. I was already the oddball in my family for not spewing hateful rhetoric every day, so it was a believable narrative to them.

Maybe my brother doesn’t believe for sure that I voted for Harris and just included me in his hit list because I oppose the killing that he wants to do. Either way, the end result is the same.

I don’t have a driver’s license, I just have a state ID card. So I’ll probably need someone else to help me with any vehicle stuff. Thanks for the reply.

Outskirts of Columbus, within reasonably short driving distance of the city

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a few concerns here:

1. I have no recorded evidence of the threats, so I’m not sure if the cops will take this seriously. I heard that shit loud and clear, but I didn’t get an audio recording.
2. I have no idea how corrupt the cops in the local area are; this is a red county, although it’s on the outskirts of a big city. I don’t know if the cops could severely fuck me over in ways I don’t know about.
3. I am likely to end up escalating tensions. My brother would probably see it as an attack on him (Harris supporter trying to get his guns confiscated) and make it a priority to get rid of me quicker. He isn’t very smart (hence why he joined the cult) so he might think that Trump will pardon all violence he commits.

I’d love to be wrong, but my current impression of cops is that they are unreliable and involving them could really backfire. But if anyone has a thoughtful rebuttal, I’d appreciate it. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert here.

Thanks! (I feel so dumb now lol)

Definitely wouldn’t be the first time I immediately jumped to scripting instead of finding an easier way to do something!

Haha, yep! Sure sounds like it!

I’m guessing that there are many, many people who like reversed roles but suppress that desire because of social stigma.

I had to fight through so much insecurity and confusion to get to this point. I was raised in a deeply conservative environment and harassed by family and classmates for being emotional. As a young teenager, I had to seek outside information (via the Internet) without anyone knowing to free myself from the echo chamber and develop a progressive belief system.

It took many years of deprogramming, self-reflection, and meeting some truly wonderful people to become confident in who I am. I feel like I got lucky and escaped a cult, and I feel a sense of sadness for all of the people who are still trapped within.

I think if the world continues to become more progressive, we’ll see a lot more people openly expressing their true romantic desires and attracting wonderful partners who they absolutely adore.

A world filled with cute happy couples of all kinds is a world I want to live in.

I fucking love this thank you so much

Definitely. I didn’t want to make the post too long, but during my daydreaming phase, I began to shift my thinking towards practical concerns. I concluded that being overly idealistic is a hazard; being open-minded and willing to compromise is key. It actually makes me feel warm and fuzzy to think about how relationships are inherently imperfect because we are inherently flawed, but we can still find a way to make them work anyway. I want to compromise for my partner because I would love her so much and want to be a wonderful boyfriend for her. I think making the relationship work is a very beautiful thing.

Ultimately, the fantasy I described is just one data point. I think there are more types of potential partners for me than the one I described. My goal is to minimize the number of preferences I have while still defining a distribution of people I’d be excited to have as a partner because that casts a wide net. For example, I don’t think my future partner giving me cute nicknames is a hard requirement. It’s just nice to think about.

It’s lovely to hear about your relationship! I’m happy for you and your husband!

For me personally, I determined that it was in my best interest to be open-minded to maximize the number of potential partners.

I’m not going to go down the path of defining a million traits that my future partner should have because nobody in the world will match all of them. Instead, my goal is to minimize the number of preferences I have, while still being excited about a relationship with someone within the distribution defined by those preferences. So, for example, I don’t care what hobbies my partner has as long as we can make the relationship work. If we share hobbies, great! But if we don’t, that’s fine too. We can find other things to do together.

Even the fantasy I mentioned is likely not the full story, just a data point. I’m likely to be more flexible. There is probably no label that perfectly describes what I want my relationships to look like. While labels can help me find like-minded people, I also shouldn’t let them limit my thinking.

Also, I avoid thinking about aggregate numbers, e.g. “What percentage of people have these traits?” and instead think “Which settings and contexts maximize my odds of meeting someone like this?” It helps me recognize that I have agency to shift the odds in my favor and this isn’t a complete lottery.