Same here, and for approximately the same reason (I left her because of the broken trust, she tried to get me back with a plan to fuck with me but I was already too fucked up over it).

It wasn’t my final relationship, but I’ll die alone and pretty happy. I have a couple of people that I actually trust and, same as you, a butt load of acquaintances that I enjoy being around. I generally use “friend” as shorthand for those people, but they’ll never really know me.

I’m very up front about relationships having a shelf life.

I saw this so often when I was client facing. CEOs, doctors, and sales people were the biggest offenders.

We had a gyno who had a huge pile of porn on his file server. It was all from the waist up. Seriously, he had half a terabyte of titty pics.

Separately, there was a sales guy who was juggling like 5 women (poorly) at any given time. He was fucking gross and would try to show them off to anyone who came to work on his continuous computer problems that were all caused by him.

Separately from that, we had a “troubled boys ranch” as one of our clients. One of the C Suite was caught with porn and we had to go over it with a fine toothed comb to make sure none of it was of any of the kids. There wasn’t (thankfully) but there was a whole lawsuit about it and he was charged with showing it to some of the kids.

I don’t even watch Doctor Who anymore because of the fucking fans. I grew up with the old series and thoroughly enjoyed the new stuff up until the fan base got so worked up about some stupid shit or other. After that I just couldn’t get any joy from watching.

I should have just tuned them out, but it’s too late. I got a bad taste in my mouth and it won’t go away.

Granted, most hobbies are money pits or conversely time sinks,

Or both! I build guitars for fun and, while I’ve made a few bucks selling some, I’ll never break even and I’ve spent countless hours doing it. Same with working on motorcycles except I have never made a dime doing it.

I guess the bright side is that at least I don’t own a boat.

I just replaced mine as they were abscessed or impacted and I didn’t notice a change, but that was over several years. I would have died in the middle ages.

If you can afford it I recommend getting the worst of them replaced with implants. If you can’t then get some partial dentures to replace whatever you’ve lost. It will help both your confidence and quality of life.

Fluoride in water can help if you’re not taught proper care and feeding of teeth, but you are right. The fluoride in toothpaste is what should be doing the heavy lifting.

I feel you. I grew up on well water (no fluoride), have a genetic predisposition for terribly crooked teeth, and wasn’t taught basic oral hygiene until I was legally an adult.

I’ve had several extractions but every time it has been either an abscess or an impacted tooth, so just the relief from that pain was almost like a drug itself. About half my teeth are fake at this point and the ones that are left are in pretty good shape because they weren’t too far gone when I actually learned how to properly take care of them.

Same. Something like Giant Gila Monster vs The Psychic Worms from Rigel 9, and all the human parts are something like Firefly with some Cowboy Bebop and Trigun thrown in.

I like space westerns. I like giant monsters. Surely we can make a space western with giant monsters.

I’ve got two related to my military service, and one related to my grandfather.

1. A guy I vaguely knew because I competed against his brother in sports in school ended up being stationed at every base I was stationed at. We even ended up being deployed together and are still good friends to this day. I’ve told stories about him on here. The way our lives have gone it looks like I’m his crazy stalker because after school I was just behind him doing almost the exact same things as him for both hobbies and careers. I promise I’m not, it just turned out that way. I did beat him moving to Houston, though.

2. After I was discharged I was on a road trip with my (at the time) fiance. We stopped at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere a thousand miles from home and 600 miles from the last place I saw him a little over 6 years after the last time we saw each other. We were seated at a table next to a guy I went to boot camp with.

3. In the spirit of the last one, I was on a road trip with my grandparents when I was young. We ran into my grandfather’s cousin. This shouldn’t be weird, but my grandparents lived down the road from me in Texas, his cousin lived in Alabama, we saw him at a rest stop in Tennessee, and neither had any idea that the other was on a road trip.

it’s not a dodge RAM

They said Walmart, not the liquor store.

I also drive a truck with the same stuff as you under the back seat. I use it to haul stuff and work around my buddy’s ranch on occasion. It’s not diesel so I couldn’t roll coal with it if I wanted to (nor do I want to).

I need a trailer rarely enough that I’ll rent one if I’ve gotta haul more than will fit in the bed.

I didn’t even know I was dating anyone!!!

Seriously, if he’ll let you share it I’d love to give it a whirl.

A few times. Usually, like many others, I let the rep know that it’s not their fault but I’m angry and try to escalate to someone who has the authority to assist. Three times I went over the line. I’m going to leave out a lot of details on the ISP ones because one would be far too long and the other could potentially out some of the parties involved. It helped in every case, and I genuinely feel bad about one because I could have gotten someone fired.

Once an HP rep stonewalled me for hours and I baited him into saying something fucked up on a recorded line. I hung up, called back, repeated what the rep said, informed them that it was recorded, and asked for a supervisor. I got one immediately and got my problem solved. I’m not proud of the way I handled it but I was young and not thinking about how my actions might affect others.

Another time was a national ISP. Every single time I called all the supervisors were in a meeting (yeah, right). My service worked almost 2 out of every 3 days and I wasn’t getting nearly the speeds I was paying for. I got on with a rep who told me about yet another supervisor meeting. So I said I’ll hold. I told him that I had vacation time and no Internet so I had nothing else to do but fuck up his call time statistics and tell dirty jokes. In those days at that call center they weren’t allowed to hang up unless you were straight up abusive. He blinked before I did because he was supposed to have already gotten off work and I was in the middle of telling bad limericks. So I got a supervisor and they actually got me fixed up the next day.

The last time was a different (local this time) ISP. I had requested specific times for repair because I was working nights and had been without Internet for weeks. I was told that was no problem. But they repeatedly showed up in the middle of the day (supposedly, I never heard from them so they weren’t ringing the doorbell but every time I called they claimed to have come out and no one was home) and telling me it’s my fault for being asleep and never letting me talk to anyone except for the receptionist. So I called one morning insisting I needed to talk to someone else because it had been weeks and she wouldn’t put me through so I let out a string of curse words and the supervisor interrupted me telling me not to talk to their employees like that. I told her about all the trouble I’ve had and that since she was there and had the receptionist lie to me about her being busy that I didn’t give the slightest shit what she thought. I told her that I was coming off nights and unless she wanted me up there every day I had off explaining to anyone in a suit walking in exactly how I was treated and that she was having her employees lie for her she’d have someone out that evening who would ring the doorbell and fix my shit.

It turned out that the issue was with their connection at the box on the outside of my apartment building so they should have been able to fix it without my input at all. No one bothered to fucking check. I seriously don’t think anyone came out but I can’t prove that.

Yeah, I know, but I’m hung over and having a bad day. Those people bring nothing to society and in most cases actively harm their employees and customers before gutting businesses, taking the money, and starting over on the next business.

Fuck them, fuck their mom, fuck their dog, fuck the horse they rode in on, fuck their grocer, and fuck them again just for good measure.

The people running private equity companies should just be shot

Who the fuck wants to look at him in the light?

I can always find my senator pretty easily. I just fly to Cancun.