A lot of people kiss their pets or non-human animals in general. I find that very weird. I understand that it is a sign of affection but it seems so off. One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this. Also it seems to be on a level of intimacy to me that I find weird sharing with a pet. Not necessarily romantically or sexually (that would be even more weird and wrong and probably illegal). But it is still “more”. I am not sure whether I can really explain why exactly I find that weird.
Anyway, what is something that is weird to you but not to most other people?
Religion just in general.
Not being an edgelord or hating, I really just don’t get it, it makes no sense to me at all and never has. When I was a kid I thought it was just like a thing people did for whatever reason, I was a kid and I didn’t know fucking anything and my family didn’t do religion, once I realized people take it super seriously and think it’s all real it really weirded me out, I thought it was just some kind of fandom thing like how I was into Power Rangers.
Caring about sports. Like they devote what amounts to a part time job watching grown men compete in children’s games. Watching Competitive exercise while they melt into a couch pounding junk food. Watching other people talk about how well they exercised. Discussing daily with their friends and family and coworkers… All about one group of people in a colored shirt moving a ball slightly better than people with a different colored shirt.
When I realized that guys typically need an activity to bond together, sports start to make a lot more sense. Sports are just a catalyst to male friendship. Yeah guys take the sports way too far, but it makes it more fun if there’s an emotional high or low when they watch it.
Celebrity gossip and worship
Killing each other because their imaginary friends are not friends with each other. Looking at you, religion wars.
Religious wars are usually about power, not actually because they believe in different imaginary beings. Religion gets control of our population or the people in power youth religion to control the population and then they bump heads with another group doing the same thing… and you get war.
The power games are for the people at the top, the ones with money. For the rest of the sheep its [religion, racism, nationalism, patriotism, whatever bogeymen that can be made up]. Just like in the US today. There’s no shortage of complete fundy nutcases wishfully cheering trump’s war in the Middle East as a path to Armageddon when in reality it’s nothing more than trump desperately trying to control the petro energy market as a power and money grab. Except he’s an idiot.
Which is indeed true, however, the people who buy into it often do it for religious reasons. You can’t start religious wars when the people aren’t religious or have a religion that doesn’t motivate them to crush others who think differently.
Voting for policies that are directly opposed to their best interests.
I kiss my parrot because it is a cultural ritual we have built together. I make smoochy noises at him and he mimics them back to me because he wants to communicate. I kiss his little beak and he supposes this is a thing I must like doing so he starts doing it back. It makes me smile and make happy noises, which he recognizes. Now we have a fun thing we do that means we’re buddies. He trains me to offer up my nose for him to smooch if he makes a specific little whispery sound. His only reward is the opportunity to boop me on the nose with his beak but he evidently finds this incredibly amusing and will occasionally whisper at me relentlessly until I give in. He will let me smooch the back of his head at nighttime because it means he gets to stay up later. His feathers are soft and he smells nice so I like it too.
This was a delightful read that made me smile, thank you for sharing!
I’m stealing that
grab as you please, it’s from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291ET6Py6H8
Hope I’m not ruining the vibe, but it’s a little disconcerting watching him do this positive performance of a happy song while wearing Leon “The Professional” shades…
I want to echo what Velma said…I recently received an incredibly painful text from my older brother, but your example of how animals love other animals, really grounds me. Im tearing up, but in relief, in awe, and in utter joy. This little anecdote is a great gift. Thanks for sharing!
Animals are easy to love, sometimes easier than loving other humans. Ultimately we all just want to connect, I’m glad I did with you today!
Don’t Artisans “stop hiring humans” sign make more sense now?
There is just something evil and repulsive about humans.
We’re vile.
But sometimes cute also.
Beautiful. I hope you post a video of your parrot doing the smoochie noises because that’s just perfect…
Oo what kind of parrot? And what country do you guys love birds that much? I want to visit 😁 we have 2, ourselves.
He’s a green cheeked conure. I also have an African Grey who doesn’t like to be smooched. What kind do you have?
Aww I love Greys!! They’re so smart and have such a wide vocabulary.
We sort of happened upon them from a couple who needed to surrender, but a Blue Fronted Amazon and more recently, a Goffin’s Cockatoo.
My Grey is kind of a dummy (or maybe just too smart to perform for my approval) but I love her anyway. She’s the sweetest and loves just hanging out on my shoulder.
I had a Blue Fronted years ago, he was the best boy ever. He was an amazing singer and mimic and loved to cuddle. Thanks for taking in birds that need homes!!
Being interested in sports. Not weird in itself but weird that they find it interesting. I just dont get it.
One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this
You would be objectively wrong on that. It’s been shown that affection to animals fires off the same parts of the brain in them as it does in humans, and delivers the same chemicals.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6826447/
Just because animals can’t communicate like you or me (though I firmly believe pets have a language that you can understand if you own one long enough), it doesn’t mean they don’t have the same feelings of bonding and closeness. Biologically we’re all very similar, so the Oxytocin that we get from being loved is identical to the oxytocin that THEY get when being loved.
Every cat I’ve ever met has a nice little language. It was always possible to tell when they were happy or annoyed at the very least. I love them. I always hope they know I love them.
Thank you for the link. Does the paper reveal anything about kissing specifically? Haven’t had the time to read it yet.
I know that humans and other animals can feel affection for each other and that physical contact, e.g., by stroking, induces a sensation of ‘affective touch’ facilitated by C-tactile fibers. So while kissing itself might induce similar effects by similar pressure force and temperature, I wonder whether it really makes a difference to ‘poking’ your pet with your finger in a similar way. In other words: if the physical sensation is similar, does another animal understand a kiss versus another form of affective touch?Dogs have the ability to read body language. So a gentle behaviour like kissing or cuddling would definitely be perceived differently than an abrupt gesture like poking them.
If you think pets dont understand kisses you have never owned a pet.
I too used to think that kissing a cat on it’s head was weird. Then I got a cat.
I will smother my cat in kisses specifically to get the “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME” reaction.
Regarding my cat: ahem
If not for kisses, why made of soft??
For cuddles of course.
I would also not do this for a human, I think. Humans are too corrupt at heart, they have to make every sign of affection mean something other than it is.
While animals don’t have jobs, or dumb fears. They just want a cuddle.
What the fuck
not washing their hands after using the bathroom…
I’m in a building with multiple offices for multiple companies and one of them has a massage place.
Each floor has one set of shared bathrooms for men and women
The masseuse guy goes to the bathroom and I’ve noticed him there multiple times taking a dump, then walking out without washing his hands
And he then massages people all over…
I apply the George Carlin process to hand washing. After all when in public I know where my dick has been but that janky faucet and restroom door knob has been touched by every wet handed dipshit who put their hands through the germ infested air dryer in the place.
This is something I especially notice at airports. Depending on which state I’m in the ratio of men washing their hands changes drastically
Well, come on. What states are grosser than others?
Come on, you know it’s the South…
Or people who flush with the toilet lid open. Gross
“But I didn’t touch anything dirty.”
Hanta virus splashes have entered the chat.
EEewww. You win dammit.
- sports
- religion
sports
And when you tell them how watching (typically) men get sweaty, musky, dirty and aggressive, chasing a ball (or rubbing their half-naked bodies together with one another), how that has some ‘similarities’ to gay porn, how they get really defensive and insecure.
‘N-no, you got it all wrong, I’m not gay! I just like watching athletic men get rough with one another, all pent up, sweaty, needy… I mean uh… Oh yeah, sports! It’s so un-gay, it’s like, looping around itself, with ungayness!’
‘So it’s like canceling the un part out?’
‘Exactly! Wait a minute…’
Don’t like sports but have never been a fan of this take. It feels indirectly homophobic (in that you’re saying something that you know is not sexual in nature is gay because you know the other person will view it as a negative or bad thing) and would probably not be taken as much of a joke if it were, say, a gay man watching women’s volleyball and their straight friends harassing him about actually being straight.
Just my two cents, I’m sure it’s fine in the right circles.
I mean, I guess I can see that, but uh… leans over, whispering being forced on a field during phys ed with a bunch of other teenage guys who’s hormones are also raging can, shall we say, awaken things.
So it’s not a ‘haha, gay’ but a ‘😏 gay’ nudge at others, who are themselves usually - in my experience - either at the end of the spectrum: neutral to the thought, or deeply in denial.
The games make no sense to me - what’s the point, ya know? But if I know that I feel a certain way about a guy’s bulge or body, I know I’m 110% not the only one. Voicing the truth can be amusing :3
I really enjoy watching men’s sports with straight men for exactly this reason. We’ll sit around and they’ll talk about how such and such a man spent so much time in the weight room, and he’s been putting on muscle, and he’s low to the ground and explosive, and it’s like, dude you are clearly talking about how bro is caked up from doing squats all offseason, how do you not realize how extremely homoerotic this whole discussion is? I find it cute how flummoxed they get about it when you say something about how the player’s looking cute in those shorts or whatever, but it’s also fun to head down to the women’s sports bars and see the lesbians get all flustered about the women’s sports teams. It’s very different because the women’s sports fans are generally much more willing to be open and honest about how such and such player is so cute or hot or however, and it’s less… lecherous? objectifying? than the men’s fans. It’s a pretty stark cultural difference that enjoy seeing in different fandoms.
Team sports is an expression of latent tribalism in many of us. Might be why you don’t see it.
And most fans of a sport have played it in their youth, so there’s unexpressed longing for lost youth.
It starts as something socialized with your male role models, spreads to your peers at school — and eventually is just another ritual that you can find comfort in via its seasonal predictability — there’s always another game to be played.
Grid iron football is indeed rather homoerotic, but … let’s say ice hockey?
Plenty of gay men playing these big, manly, homoerotic sports, and having a grand time!
Most of em are just a little quiet about it, for obvious gay panic reasons. That’s less of a problem as time goes on, but still.
Those ice hockey girlies in the pwhl be kissing on each other and getting married there’s no way you can convince me it isn’t homoerotic.
But that’s all off ice gaysex
For me it’s the utter pointless of it. Can this collection of humans push the ball past the other collection of humans? About as relevant as which mouse gets a bit of cheese. Why would I watch or care about the outcome, much less less the second-by-second details of how it came to be?
Wow, that guy throws a ball really really well. Huh, whaddyaknow.
To be fair, the same could be said of all games.
- Which human happens to receive the best collection of dice rolls?
- Which human happens to benefit the most from the shuffled arrangement of cards?
- Which human can move their pieces better than their opponent(s)?
- Which human(s) can push buttons better than the competing human(s)?
I hope you’ve had fun playing a game before, and if so, can at least imagine that it would be interesting to watch top level players of that game accomplish what you couldn’t.
The biggest difference I see with sports is the level of obsession over the game and the assumption that every masculine presenting person shares that obsession.
Bro doesn’t know what fun is
I think that’s one of my favorite aspects. As I’ve gotten older, it’s hard to find low-stakes social encounters to hang out with my friends. The local women’s soccer team is doing well in the champions league is a good excuse to head out to sit in the summer sun on a wednesday night by the sound.
But my collection of humans hails from a point geographically closer to me than the other collection of humans!
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- sports
Partly agreed. I find competitive sports and its fanbase very strange. However, doing sports for the sake of doing sports or for the sake of keeping some physical or mental health feels more natural to me.
Sports are fine for like kids’ recreation, but the trillions that are spent on the pro sports industry could go to something better.
Convince me those aren’t the same thing.
I have relatives who unironically refer to the Dallas Cowboys as “God’s Football Team”
:vomit:
How often I tell people I’m not religious I’m a sports fan. They fill the same niche. People like tradition. People like ceremony. People like community. Some people like being able to you know sit in front of a pedophile and have him preach them for a while. I prefer to sit in front of a person hardlining multiple drugs and watch him put a ball through a hoop. Different Strokes for different folks.
I prefer to sit in front of a person hardlining multiple drugs and watch him put a ball through a hoop.
Ooh, kinky!
MMA/ufc the SHOWS fans, turns out the audience can be as conservatives as the fighters, owners themselves, not surprising its all about psychopaths trying to hurt each other.
One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this.
Cats and dogs (as well as lots of other animals often kept as pets) both tend to lick at those they feel affection toward. Grooming behaviors from animals are typically signs of trust, affection, or shows that they look after you and are trying to protect you.
I figure that most pets very much understand what getting kissed by their human means.
Hahaha yes! They can feel the love 100%
🤗
Evolving cross species social skills is a positive survival trait. It’s not only easy to show that pets understand a lot of what we do but has been deeply studied
When you say something simple and someone else attacks you over some imaginary meaning or intent. Neurotypical people are unwell.
Not really a neurotypical problem, nice insult though very cool
I know. I just avoid talking when not asked, because people always find a reason to be offended.
A co-worker got mad over that too. Not talking is also very offensive to these people.
When you say something simple and someone else attacks you over some imaginary meaning or intent.
Totally agree.
Neurotypical people are unwell.
Wayyy too broad of a statement to agree with. I’ve seen this behavior from both neurotypical and neurodivergent people.
No need to yell 😖
Happens a lot on Lemmy
Typical to everyone = unwell to me
Pretty strong evidence you aren’t well and should be discounted.
Have you been tested? Because you sure took that comment way too literally and seriously.
Ok let me say totally not seriously that autistic people are weird and neuro typicals are cool… so… what is the value of this statement vs yours…
Literally asking a question
