Pride Month?? Stop Making Being Queer Your Whole Personality Ermmmmm Anyways!! *shoots You With The Aromantic

“pride month?? stop making being queer your whole personality🤣🤣” ermmmmm anyways!! *shoots you with the aromantic beam*

yeah, love is love. Even platonic love and queer platonic partners. Even aesthetic love. Even love without sex. Even familial love. All love is love.

there have been 774664 studies on basic income and the results of every single one have been “wow! we gave people money and literally everything improved! crime rates are down! the actual sky is bluer! my (the researcher’s) wife decided not to leave me after all!” but these have all been short studies, just a couple years. i think what’s really missing from the field is a proper long form study, with a broader, bolder demographic, to really get us those numbers we need. a truly diverse study pool like, say, everyone. forever

probably my most powerful interpersonal communication hack is to, whenever possible, ask either/or questions rather than yes/no questions

for example, when chatting with coworkers, i’ll often ask if they have any fun weekend plans. but let’s be real - we all feel like friendless losers when someone asks that question and we go “uhhhhh… no.” so instead, i phrase it as “so, do you have anything fun planned over the weekend, or are you just going to enjoy having some time to relax?”

phrased like this, there’s rarely any awkwardness. you’ve presented two options & given both equally positive connotations, so your conversational partner has an automatic “out,” so to speak

but it works for higher stakes conversations too!!!! my mom was saying this weekend how she and her neighbor both like walking around the neighborhood & that she wanted to suggest they take a walk together sometime, but was worried about how to approach the conversation

so i said “how about you just say ‘i’ve noticed we both like taking walks! would you be interested in going for one together, or do you use walks for some precious alone time?’”

now Walking Neighbor has an automatic “get out of jail free card” if she wants to say no!!!! which means my mom doesn’t have to worry about the conversation being uncomfortable, because she’s set it up to go smoothly

either/or questions rather than yes/no questions. it is really like magic

So I hate facetime but have two small nephews who live very far away and wanted them to know who I was. So when second nephew was born, I started sending first nephew (4 years old) a postcard every week.

The content wasn't anything special. I made cookies, I saw this flower, my cats did this. He likes trucks and machinery so I scoured redbubble for anything related to machinery and got a giant batch of machine postcards. Whenever I traveled, I'd hunt down a postcard for him.

My second nephew turned four this year, and I started sending him postcards as well. Both of them like Pokemon now, so mostly it's been double Pokemon postcards every week. I don't hear much from them, or my sister, so I just generally hope they're enjoyed and try to remember to mail them before Sunday.

However. This week my mom informed me second nephew likes the postcards SO MUCH he brings them into daycare to show around. And when I shared that with my sister, she told me not only does he bring them into daycare, he sleeps with them at naptime.

The only higher honor would be for her to tell me he's eating them.

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.