Right now I think it’s a three way tie between mainstream social media, online gambling, and right-wing influencers.

Not really, although I can see how what I wrote might come off as that.

Learning how to interact socially with other people isn’t masking. It’s a practiced skill just like anything else. For some people, it comes quite naturally. For others, like myself, it was challenging. I’m happier now because I fit in better with others socially.

I do not believe in the idea that aspects of one’s personality are immutable and unchangeable. I think that most people would look back on themselves as a young adult and see an entirely different person that who they are now. The same is true for me.

I had someone tell it to me straight - that the reason I was getting side-eyes and laughter behind my back and why girls wanted nothing to do with me was because I was an awkward dweeb.

At first it kind of hurt my feelings, but it kind of woke me up to the reality of the situation and I began to not only notice how other people saw me, but I started examining myself and my own actions in a more critical light.

Most of the time it was me behaving inappropriately in the given situation. Everyone else walking to their next class? There’s me Naruto running down the hall. You get the idea.

I had to learn to identify the behaviors that people were critical of or found off-putting, and learn the appropriate behavior to emulate. Eventually, after I learned the correct response to any particular social situation, it was less about knowledge and more about confidence. I was lucky to make some well-adjusted and confident friends in high school who helped me learn what it was all about. I didn’t fret about talking to random people anymore, I could carry on a normal conversation for at least five minutes, I developed “normal” hobbies and interests (but crucially I kept my old ones as well, they were just not the first things I would lead with when talking to people), and in general I just mellowed out a little and developed the skill to be able to read a room and know how to deal with certain people.

tl;dr - someone talked to me and told me I was an awkward kid, but they also did their best to help me identify and fix the things that made me weird and unlikable.

Wow, that’s actually quite cool. Change will come from the ground up, imo. Good for them learning a better system. In another generation or two they will probably be the ones to spearhead the effort to do away with the old Imperial system entirely.

I don’t know why the U.S. gets shit for using the system that our colonial overlords forced us to use in the first place.

The only reason we’re still using it today is inertia. If we gradually tried phasing it out we’d have a lot more people on board with officially switching over to it versus the “ripping the band-aid” method of doing it all at once and causing culture shock to a bunch of ignorant Americans who haven’t done math since 8th grade.

Did I get transported to the Epstine Universe? I swear it was always the Epstain Files!

You already have some great answers in the thread, but i just want to add that if you or anyone else reading this is trying marijuana for the first time, do an edible, as low strength as you can get it, and see if you like it first before experimenting with the other ingestion methods.

Smoking it will be an unpleasant feeling and you will cough and sputter and your throat will get hella dry.

Vaping or using a bong will probably get you too high too quickly and you might have a bad trip.

For my first time I did a 2.5mg gummy and it was not quite enough. I could feel it working but it was too low dose to have an inebriating effect on me. Then I bumped it up to 5mg and it was great, gave me a nice head high without completely disabling me, i could still carry on a conversation and play videogames and such without any kind of impairment. I went up to 10mg and that was the sweet spot for feeling high for hours but not really being able to do much other than binge watch YouTube videos and eat junk food. I’m not really going to be productive or coherent in that state. 20mg gummy gave me a bad high both times that I tried it so that’s pretty much my limit.

Just be careful and give them time to kick in. The “these edibles ain’t shit” mentality is real and will get you into trouble fast. Can sometimes take 2+ hours to ramp up to the full effect and will last for 8-10 hours afterwards.

Every time I see this image I swear his eyes get smaller every time.