muggiwhplar

Was in my hometown for a wedding last week, and my lifting buddy was in town for it too so we lifted together for the first time in years. Was nice having my old spotter back. Maxed my bench for the first time since April 2012. Benched 205, it felt light, so I tried 215 since I knew I could bench 210 but wasn't sure about 215. Barely failed. So basically my max right now is 210 lbs @ 130 lbs bodyweight. Did 5x5 with 175 today. So close, yet so far away to getting double my bodyweight. Kinda upsetting how much strength I lost after graduation-- was benching 200 @ 125 in april '12. Currently been lifting consistently again since november '14. Was at 5x5 with 115 back then so I guess that's about +60 lbs in ~7 months. I got back to my old level of strength in around february but my form was terrible so I lowered the weights again to readjust my form... it's pretty much a constant cycle of hitting a new record w/ terrible form, lowering the weights and working back up to the record w/ perfect form, then hitting a new record but with terrible form again and repeating over and over while strength improves very slowly.

I don't think anyone's giving him advice >_>

you became good friends who wanted to [bleep] men and women can't be friends I disagree. Yes, we might have wanted to get physical. But I've had other female friends that I had no desire to [bleep]. Keyword: "had" :P

Losing 50% of your xp seems a bit excessive... if you're lvl 50 all stats you go down to lvl 43 but if you're lvl 99 you go down to lvl 92... yeah [bleep] that lol. I can't imagine training slayer or rc on there also how funny would it be if the NMZ entrance was a safe zone :D if you can safely AFK magic somewhere that'd be ~400k xp per AFK session with the 5x xp lol

that reminds me, i still need to pick up my psych diploma from the bursar's office one of these days >_> wonder if they can just mail it to me...

No I'm not saying you can choose your orientation

i like how if anyone reads this thread in the distant future they'll be like "well that's an odd first post to start a discussion on sexual orientation and identification"

i am whichever the objectively best sexual orientation is

Okay, long-term goal: getting an answer that isn't this hyperevasive bullshit :3 Why does it keep going back to my long-term goals? My long-term goals are my own, they're not relevant to the topic at hand. This isn't me caring about a topic because I feel I shouldn't have to change, this is me caring about a topic because it directly affects people I care about (also I actually enjoy learning about it, and it's generally more acceptable to nerd out about gender than, say, the language of flowers or color theory). I'm not trying to incite change on some global level, and my plans don't revolve around those changes happening. I can, however, use it to teach people on an individual level, when they're already at least partially open to the idea because it affects people they care deeply about. In doing so, I've found people I care about. And honestly the biggest obstacle I've had to face is that people are convinced that they already know everything about LGBTQ+ issues and, as such, feel obligated to tell those individuals who they are and what they should be doing, especially if what they're doing does not fit their preconceptions... Which is exactly what's happening here. Clinging to outdated preconceptions, and ignoring anything that might shake them, is part of why I don't trust the individual. (appropriately enough, that sort of mindset is why people tend to be blindsighted when they find out I'm more into women than men, and, being a lifelong troll, I take endless joy in baiting them) I'll give you an example of a financial goal that I have (and that I think everybody should have). My financial goal is: [hide=Financial Goal] 1. Earn over $75k/yr That's basically where the relationship between money and happiness caps out, since that amount's enough to cover all of one's basic needs pretty much. 2. Work less than 30 hours per week. I have family members that earn around 300k/yr... but they've been working 80 hours/week for the past decade and they're miserable. They show no signs of cutting down their hours because they have no clear financial goals; when I ask them how many hours they wish they'd be working, they say 40. When I ask them how much income they'd be willing to sacrifice in order to work 40 hours a week, they're not sure. When I ask them how long they could last earning significantly less money in order to cut down hours, they don't know. When I ask them what their ultimate long-term financial goal is, they don't know. And as a result, they keep making insane financial decisions both in and out of work because they have no goal to guide their decisions. 3. Have no boss. I hate being forced to follow orders just because someone is my superior; especially if I think they're an idiot. I remember my first sales boss trying to give advice to one of our salesmen when they were setting their daily sales goal: "Ok so Erica's aiming for 2 sales today. That's bad because she could get either 0, 1, or 2 sales. That means there's a 33% chance of her getting 0 sales today! She should set her goal to 5 sales instead, that way there's only a 20% chance of her getting 0 sales today!" I really wanted to say, "Yeah! Today I'm going to get a billion sales because that way there'll be a 0.0001% chance that I get 0 sales and a 50% chance that I get 500,000,000 sales today!" But I wanted to keep my job so I just bit my tongue :P 4. Have no employees. Society loves to tell me how important being a "leader" is. I hate being a leader. It's basically just glorified babysitting, getting paid to tolerate drama. Yuck. Part of the reason I quit my first sales job was because the only way to earn more money was to become a manager and climb the ladder. I told my boss I wasn't interested in becoming a manager and since there was nothing left for me to do there, I respectfully quit my job. Meanwhile some of my old coworkers moved up the ladder and now they're stuck managing, which they later came to realize that they don't enjoy. All because they didn't plan ahead like I did. 5. Have the ability to re-accomplish #1-4 within 6 months in the event of a financial/economic catastrophe. I have friends whose finances depend on the company they work for. If for some reason they get laid off or their company goes out of business, they're screwed. They'll be able to find a new job, but it won't pay as well or have all the benefits they accrued via loyalty from their old company. This is why I chose a career in sales; sales is always in demand and it generalizes into other areas of life as well (such as dating). Same goes for marketing if sales isn't your thing. [/hide] Now, career/finance is just one part of your life. There's also relationships/dating and health/fitness. But I can't really imagine meeting a person who's accomplished the same financial goal as me being unsatisfied or unfulfilled with the financial part of their life. They wouldn't be a slave to a corporate office, have a boss they hate, lack free time to spend doing things they enjoy with people they love, and they'd have plenty of money to indulge with. Similarly, they'll be a lot better at decision-making if they're making all of their decisions based on a specific long-term goal that they have mapped out, rather than what feels best to them at that current moment in time. Additionally, having a long-term goal really helps to alleviate the grind of a job that you might currently hate. When I started working in sales, I voluntarily worked 70-80 hours/week while my coworkers were working 40 hours. I did it because it was 100% commission so the more I worked, the more I got paid, and also the quicker I'd be done with that part of my goal at that shitty sales job lol. You can keep reminding yourself that it's only temporary and that it will pay off in the long run. My friends who work 9-5 corporate cubicle jobs hate their careers because they have no goals; if I ask them what their plans are-- if they want to move up the ladder, or work at their companies for x years before switching to a new industry or company, they have no clue. So they just go to work every day without any real motive other than to pay the bills. There's no real reason for them to be working at a shitty job like that. But that's what they're going to be doing for the next 30+ years because they don't know any better or have any specific goals to make them happier along the way. But back to my point, I don't really see how one's sexual orientation could stop them from achieving a goal like that and consequently mastering that aspect of their lives and becoming happy and fulfilled with their career and finances.

The group is just a collection of individuals similar to yourself. And if an individual such as yourself is capable of becoming happy, then so is each individual within your group. Therefore, if you want the group to be happy, then you focus on each individual within the group... which is sort of what's going on right now with you and Alg. :P Like BD said in that post I quoted, if every member of your group was here arguing, one at a time, and taking the advice given to them, one at a time, then, like magic, suddenly your group would be happy. The only problem is some people don't actually want to be happy. Or they do want to be happy, but it's not their #1 priority so when forced to choose between happiness and something else that's important to them, they'll sacrifice happiness and then wonder why they aren't happy. So as a result, the group will continue to exist; not necessarily because of the external problem that the group is united against; but because the group is composed of individuals who refuse to prioritize happiness and change.

Also: http://www.blackdragonblog.com/2014/06/29/manosphere-activism/ My favorite parts:

Ok we're back to this again. Tell me what your long-term goals are and we'll go from there. If you don't have any long-term goals tell me why you don't.

...What do my plans have to do with the topic at hand? I'm actually pretty alright with my situation at the moment, I don't see why I should ignore the fact that a lot of people I associate with are definitely not in as good a position. Deflecting the argument on to me isn't going to make the problem go away, and if you don't want to bother to understand it, that's on you. If happiness is that sort of head-in-the-sand blissful ignorance, I'll keep doing my own thing :P My core argument is basically that just about everybody (especially everybody ITT) has the ability to become happy if they want to. Yes, there are obstacles along the way, but that's just part of the process. I treat these problems the same way as I treat things like natural or economic disasters-- yes, they suck. But they're an inevitable part of my life. Time spent feeling negative about these things is time that could've been spent being productive and structuring my life in order to minimize the impact that these things have on my life. If you're happy, then the woes of the world instantly become irrelevant to you. They're still relevant to other people though, but only until the other people choose to live life the way I do-- which means taking full responsibility for their lives and their happiness. At which point, they're also happy and their problems also become irrelevant. You should ignore the fact that other people are in a bad position because clearly that's something that makes you unhappy and it's something that's beyond your control. You're responsible for your problems only, not theirs. If they want to be happy, they're capable of doing that without you. But you don't have to just ignore problems that occur to everyone! Here's a secret: as a society, we can fix them! We can approve same sex marriage! We can allow women to vote! We can free the slaves! We can do all these things that make things fairer and remove bullshit societal barriers that exist only as a result of prejudice! But we can't do that by not talking about them! We can't do that by saying "you don't exist" or "you don't matter". And if you're going to say "You don't exist" or "You don't matter", you are only going to help keep things unfair, and prolong that barrier to equality. Finding personal happiness and talking about societal problems aren't mutually exclusive and quite frankly if your personal happiness requires you to not talk about any problems ever, then it's not a personal happiness that I could ever consider good. I'm not sure if you just don't understand what I'm saying, or if you do understand but you're disagreeing. I'll use RuneScape as an example. When Evolution of Combat came out, that pretty much killed my desire to play RS. Now, given that the EOC made me unhappy, and I want to be happy, I had a few options: 1. Get on the forums and complain about the update, and how unfair it is to veterans who enjoyed the previous form of combat; I remain unhappy until Jagex fixes it. 2. Try to keep playing and learn to adapt to EOC; I remain unhappy until I adapt. 3. Quit playing RS and go find a new way to spend my free time; I remain unhappy until I find a new hobby. The vast majority of the world, when faced with a similar problem, will choose option #1. The problem with option #1 is you relinquish all control over your own happiness and give it to someone else-- whether it be Jagex, the government, society as a whole, etc. Additionally, there's a very good chance that Jagex (or the government, or society) won't change for a very, very long time... they might not even change ever! And that means you'll never be happy! Doesn't that sound awful? With options #2 and #3 you're in full control over your own happiness. The only downside is, you have to acknowledge that the world is unfair and doesn't give a shit about your happiness. If you want to be happy, you're on your own to pursue it. But the good news is, not only will you be happy again relatively quickly-- once you satisfy your needs which RS once satisfied in an alternative way-- but you'll also remain consistently happy again until the next time you're forced to make a similar decision. So I chose #3 and I'm glad I did. Whenever I get on OSRS there's still friends of mine complaining about how far downhill RS has gone and how poorly they feel they're being treated... yet they refuse to quit playing. They "shouldn't have to!" Well tough shit, they do have to. At least, if they want to be happy that is. So back to sexual orientation. If you're being discriminated against, sure you can join a movement and try to initiate political change... but I wouldn't recommend doing that if doing so makes you consistently unhappy. And based on my observations, I've never heard of any of my friends going "You know what muggi? Ever since I've started following politics and examining every instance of injustice in the world, I've become such a happier and more optimistic person!" That's why I turn a blind eye to issues like these-- if they don't affect me, I don't want to know about it. If it does affect me, I don't want to change the issue, I want to change myself. Like marriage, for example. If I pretend for a moment that I believe I can make marriage work, but then I look and see how [bleep]ed I'd be in the event of a divorce, then suddenly I'm in quite the predicament. I can either start raising awareness of how [bleep]ed up divorce and alimony laws are, and try to start a global campaign to get men and women to start reevaluating marriage, or I can just choose to not get married in the first place. One option relinquishes control of my happiness; one option keeps me in control. Is it fair that loyal RS players got [bleep]ed by EOC? Is it fair that people get [bleep]ed by divorce? Is it fair that people who don't have normal sexualities are discriminated against? No. But is it their fault that they're consequently unhappy? Yes. Can they become happy if they truly wanted to? Yes. And that is why I remain happy in an unfair world.

...What do my plans have to do with the topic at hand? I'm actually pretty alright with my situation at the moment, I don't see why I should ignore the fact that a lot of people I associate with are definitely not in as good a position. Deflecting the argument on to me isn't going to make the problem go away, and if you don't want to bother to understand it, that's on you. If happiness is that sort of head-in-the-sand blissful ignorance, I'll keep doing my own thing :P My core argument is basically that just about everybody (especially everybody ITT) has the ability to become happy if they want to. Yes, there are obstacles along the way, but that's just part of the process. I treat these problems the same way as I treat things like natural or economic disasters-- yes, they suck. But they're an inevitable part of my life. Time spent feeling negative about these things is time that could've been spent being productive and structuring my life in order to minimize the impact that these things have on me. If you're happy, then the woes of the world instantly become irrelevant to you. They're still relevant to other people though, but only until the other people choose to live life the way I do-- which means taking full responsibility for their lives and their happiness. At which point, they're also happy and their problems also become irrelevant. You should ignore the fact that other people are in a bad position because clearly that's something that makes you unhappy and it's something that's beyond your control. You're responsible for your problems only, not theirs. If they want to be happy, they're capable of doing that without you.

Sounds like you and muggi have something in common :lol: because from his posts and his interactions with women it seems to fit this description identically. I'd go as far as to say aromantics seem to be the norm on PUA communities. The difference is the PUA community has an extremely internal locus of control... which is why PUAs seem to be the happiest and most fulfilled of the "social issue" communities :P If someone posts on a PUA forum about how they can't get laid or find a nice girlfriend, the posters will tell them it's their fault and try to identify what the poster is doing wrong. If the same person were to post on a MRA forum or something, they'd say he's doing nothing wrong and it's women's fault and society needs to be changed so he can be happy. The guy on the MRA forums won't change and won't become happy. The guy on the PUA forums will change and will end up happy (assuming he actually wants to change and follow the advice he's given).

I don’t know why you brought up that statistic if you cannot relate to it then >_> Why did you bring it up, what’s your point? I think the problem here is, you’re identifying with the group (and the statistics which reflect the group) instead of taking a step back and examining yourself as an individual. Alright so I guess this is your way of admitting that you’re depressed. Guess what: I’ve been depressed before too, and I hated it. I hated it so much that I started making changes to my life such that I would never feel depressed again. There’s countless books out there on how to treat depression, countless medications, countless therapists. There’s no excuse for being depressed for a long period of time. Have you read any books on depression? Have you taken any medication? Have you seen any professionals? If they didn’t work, did you read different books, try different medications, try different professionals? Are you trying to tell me that deep down you believe that you’re doomed to remain depressed until the day you die because there’s absolutely no solution to your problem? Again you’re ignoring your potential as an individual and instead focusing on the group mentality. Are you telling me that as an individual, it’s absolutely unreasonable and impossible for you to be happy because of all the discrimination you speak of? Like I said when I spoke to Alg, what are your long-term goals and how are they being jeopardized by discrimination? So you’re telling me you’re doomed to be lonely for the rest of your life until society changes its ways? That you as an individual have no hope of ever conquering loneliness? Keyword: fewer. Yeah I’m not denying there’s fewer opportunities. But that doesn’t change anything. There’s fewer opportunities for me to get laid because I’m shorter and less attractive than most of my friends… but I still get laid. Just because there’s fewer opportunities doesn’t mean there are zero opportunities. In other words, that’s no excuse. What’s stopping you from finding a new job if you get fired? What’s stopping you from moving somewhere else if your friends and family don’t accept you? So you’re saying that straight people have completely worry-free happy lives and everything’s handed to them on a silver platter and they have no excuse for not being happy? And are all these people in this community as depressed as you are? If so, don’t you think that surrounding yourself with depressed people might have something to do with your depression? If there are people in the community who aren’t depressed, why aren’t they? Why aren’t you asking them for advice on how to avoid depression since they’re in the same boat as you, experiencing the same problems as you?

Wouldn't someone like muggi have the same problem with marriage as you would? Marriage rights glorify monogamous relationships and offer rights to them. That people of his orientation would be denied basic rights of immigration, visitation, hospital visits, etc. for not conforming to your monogamy standards. He may face a glass ceiling in the work place because a lot of companies statistically prefer hiring married people to upper management positions. Arguably poly is the most queer orientation there is now :lol: Yeah. There's a certain opportunity cost of choosing to be happy rather than choosing to be accepted lol. I'd rather be happy and get a few weird looks from my friends and family than be miserable and get a pat on the back

We've been through this before, Alg. You're in a position where you have to work harder than a "normal" person to be happy. But just because you have to work harder that doesn't mean that happiness is an impossible, or even unreasonable, pursuit. I have a feeling that you guys don't really have any specific long-term goals mapped out. They say the relationship between money and happiness caps out at about $75k/yr. Are you telling me that you're never going to get your financial needs met just because of your sexual orientation? That nobody out there is willing to hire you and pay you lots of money just because of who you are? Have you tried online dating or meetup.com in order to satisfy your dating/relationship needs? What's stopping you from putting up a dating profile and blasting out openers to hundreds of people? Is there absolutely nobody out there who's interested in you? Hell I bet there's dating sites specifically catered to people like you. And if there isn't, that sounds like the perfect market niche waiting to be fulfilled. But back to my original point: do you have specific, long-term goals? Yes or no? If yes, then what are they and what's holding you back? If no, then there's your problem :P

What's the point of having power if power doesn't make you happy? Did you miss the examples I gave of my miserable straight single friends? Do you really think they feel powerful just because they're straight? Do you really think they're happy? Do you think the gay friend I talked about feels powerless and miserable just because he's gay? This is a well documented fact. Queer individuals are more likely to have depression. You're just proving my point. If you're going to say "I can't be happy because the statistics say I'm doomed to be unhappy!" then yeah you're going to be miserable until you take responsibility for your own happiness.

I think the same thing can be said if you're in the minority. It's very easy for an unhappy person to assume that anyone who's "better off" than them has a 100% worry-free, completely fulfilling and happy life. Except most people are unhappy, even the ones who seem to have it all. For example, you can be unhappily single and wish you were in a relationship like your friends... but you might be so desperate for a relationship that you don't realize that all of your friends' relationships suck. Or you might be unemployed or stuck at a dead-end job, wishing you had a high-paying corporate career like your friends... but you might be so desperate for a "respectable" job that you don't realize that all of your friends feel like prisoners at their soul-sucking 9-5 corporate office job. But the people who are "successful" aren't really allowed to complain about it because in the eyes of the unsuccessful they should be happy and if they complain, then they're just acting like spoiled brats. As far as sexual orientation goes, my friend who recently came out is probably the happiest friend I have as far as his social/dating/sex life goes. He went from sexually confused and frustrated to being able to hook up with as many guys as he wants whenever he wants now, and he's having the time of his life. Compared to my straight friends who are also single but they can't get laid because they lack basic dating skills, they don't understand how women work, and they refuse to put in the work required to master dating. One of my straight friends even told me, "Dude I really just wish I was gay. Dating would be so much easier and straightforward, I just can't stand dealing with women anymore." My point is, the vast majority of people-- including the "privileged" and "normal" ones are usually unhappy because their lives are normal/mediocre/unfulfilling. The only way to be happy, regardless of which group you belong to, is to take full responsibility for your own happiness and work your ass off in order to be happy.

You're gonna have to elaborate on that one

It's only a bad thing if it's making you unhappy or less happy than you would be otherwise. Like with the lithosexual example I gave earlier-- if someone's just using that as an excuse to avoid the discomfort of pursuing sex, then that's bad (I'm thinking of the guys in the relationships thread who've chickened out at a bar and then rationalized it by saying that they're picky; or that they refuse to go on dates because they actually think they'll get accused of rape for creeping a girl out). Or if you're limiting/narrowing your options because of your own self-imposed beliefs about sexuality and consequently you have an unfulfilled sex life, then that's also bad.

My main gripe is probably this, that it seems like random groups on tumblr etc are coming up with different sexualities to appear to be special snowflakes, as opposed to academics drawing out well categorised sets that are more useful for classification. People are trying to come up with words to describe themselves, not words to give them special snowflake status or w/e bullshit you think it is. Also, those "special snowflake" orientations exist more as things to say to others who are also part of the ace community and therefore understand the experiences. They may not be useful classification for you, but it's very valuable to me to know if someone is quoiromantic/WTFromantic because I immediately have a very deep understanding of how they work with their closest relationships. And it's valuable to the people that identify that way because just knowing that other people feel that way helps validate your feelings, even when society at large likes to invalidate them. Nerd is also not a "scientific" classification, but that never stopped people from creating it, or from finding value in identifying as one. There's no academic definition of the fine line between nerd and geek and jock and hipster and whatever the [bleep] else, but you wouldn't tell someone off for being one of those. Or maybe you would, idk, but 1 that would make you an [wagon] and 2 who the [bleep] cares about your opinion anyway. Academic discussion doesn't make things real anyway. Things are real, and then people study it. Not the other way around. But is there a need to come up with terms like quoiromantic/sapiosexual/fraysexual/lithosexual/placiosexual to define your sexuality? Is such a level of detail necessary? These come across as merely preferences (e.g. y guy's brunettes vs blondes) rather than a sexual orientation. I feel like any guy who wants to have sex but is too afraid to make a move or take risks can just call himself a lithosexual as a defense mechanism >_> I mean shit, if a term like that suddenly becomes mainstream I can guarantee there will be a ton of sexually frustrated virgins out there who remain sexually frustrated virgins because it's easier to just say, "oh I'm not getting laid because I'm a lithosexual" rather than saying, "oh I'm not getting laid because sex is outside of my comfort zone"

I have a feeling it's less about having a practical/accurate self-description and more of a way for people who feel like outcasts to find solidarity with one another >_> It's like if you search Google for forums dedicated to MBTI and horoscope types. These people relate to these types and consequently define themselves by it... for better or for worse. While it's fun to read about my "rare" INFJ personality type, it's kind of silly when people go on to rant about how the world is so harsh to introverts and how misunderstood they constantly feel and use that as an excuse to be unhappy lol But there really isn't much you can infer from someone's MBTI or sexual orientation or any other obscure personality quirk that you couldn't infer from simply getting to know them.

I'm a boobiesexual cuz I LOVE BOOBIES