sorry for always getting orders of magnitude wrong. i swear it's because i'm a physicist. in most cases if you're within an order of magnitude or two that's a pretty good estimate, in physics
sam: (doing a car based quiz) travis, shorter exhaust pipe would be louder or quieter than a longer one?
travis: louder.
me (has never driven a day in their life): that's wrong
sam: one correct answer. the coin test for tires involves placing a penny in the deepest tread of your tire with the Lincoln head facing the wheel. how much of the president should be covered for you to have a safe and road-legal tire? Is it everything above his nose, everything above his chin, or as long as any part of his face is showing you're okay?
me (from a country with no faces on the coin): the fuck?
travis: everything above his chin?
sam: incorrect! Any part of his face can be showing for that tire test.
me (has zero driving and car maintenance experience): for shame travis! for shame
boss was asking me about my trip next summer and im realizing that im in no way prepared for this 7000+ mile road trip in less than a year. gas is going to cost 1300 dollars lol
I (32M) recently realized I'm bisexual and I have my first bf (45M), he's a rescue helicopter pilot (this will be relevant later). I'm out to my sister (41F) and my coworkers, including her husband, who I have worked with for years, but not to my parents or most of the other guests. Everyone has joked that I'm a little too close to my best friend (32M), and we might as well get married, but he's straight and has a gf. They're not relevant to this story, but to give context to how much my sexuality probably shouldn't be a surprise, even if it took me by surprise.
I told my sister and her husband I was bringing a plus one, and they both knew my bf, they were supportive of it because he makes me really happy.
Everything kind of started at the bachelor party. It was just me, my brother-in-law, and my best friend, and we did the usual stuff. We stayed a night in a hotel, went out to get drunk, sang some karaoke at our usual spot. It should have been a super chill night. Until my best friend and I lost the groom??? But it way more stressful than The Hangover makes it look.
He'd been taken by these guys who tried to kill him (no, I don't know why) and we didn't realize he was missing until less than an hour before the wedding. My mom kind of threw a fit about us being late, and then blamed me for losing the groom, which is kind of a normal reaction from her. My dad didn't yell as much but again, this is a normal reaction, I'm kind of the disappointment child. Basically, we had to find my brother-in-law because he still needed to marry my sister.
Before anyone worries: they did get married. He's fine. The hospital says they're discharging him tomorrow to go home. They're gonna reschedule their honeymoon so he's well enough to enjoy it.
Long story short, it turned into a rescue mission, and driving would have taken too long, and my best friend suggested we ask my bf to borrow his helicopter again (long story, but we had to borrow him for something a few months ago, it's how we met!) so I asked him for the favor. My mom asked who he was, since my best friend just used his name, and I told her he's my boyfriend, and she freaked out about it.
When we go to the hospital with my brother-in-law, my parents both yelled at and scolded me for taking attention away from the biggest day of my sister's life by pulling some "stunt" with my bf (to SAVE my brother-in-law from being violently murdered), and I think my dad somehow grounded me?
Eddie stares at the screen. It’s not — the title is…
Well.
Fuck.
He’s read enough of the Reddit thread in question to know that he’s phrasing it right but he doesn’t—
It feels bad to post something that starts with “AITA my [32M] best friend [32M] just started dating someone new and for the first time since I’ve known him its a guy [39M]. Every time I think about them together it makes me want to puke and/or die and/or punch somebody. I’ve never thought I was homophobic before. One of my closest friends at work (and our workplace is like a family in the most literal aside from blood sense) is a lesbian and I have a regular wine night with her wife and we’ve never had an issue!”
But like. He doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t exactly ask Buck about it. And he’s not going to text Hen or Karen to ask them to delve into their deeper analyses of his psyche and whether or not they’ve secretly picked up “”””signs”””” that he’s homophobic. If they have? He doesn’t want to know. Because he’s not a homophobe! He isn’t! Really truly!!
At least he’s never been before when it was Hen and Karen and Michael and David and people he'd met on calls and even Josh (his issues with Josh had been 1,000% unrelated to Josh’s sexuality). But for whatever reason, Buck and Tommy dating — Buck and Tommy kissing — Buck and Tommy having sex and—
He loses the plot in favour of unidentifiable rage.
He makes the Reddit post.
He is primarily asked for additional context.
“Well. Uh. Let’s call him Stag. Has been my best friend since we defused a bomb together I don’t even know like five years ago? And he’s like the best friend I’ve ever had to the point where I’ve changed my will so that he’s the person who gets my son in the event of my untimely demise. And like! I like his boyfriend! I really do, it’s not that I’m worried that if something happens to me and Stag has to take custody of our son I’m worried about how [let’s call him Gatling] would do with our kid. He’s a cool guy and tbh we were friends first and he’d probably make a wicked stepdad to anyone’s kid, but also… okay it got late and I don’t think this is an accurate representation of the situation but! Anyway! Additional information of note being that I like both of them as people a whole bunch so the idea that I might be activating latent homophobic responses just because of either of them as people is nonsense haha.”
And he isn’t! Eddie isn’t worried about how Tommy would be as a stepdad. Really! It doesn’t even give him hives to think about dying anymore.
It takes until he wakes up in a cold sweat at three in the morning for him to realise that he doesn’t think of Buck as Chris’s stepdad. He thinks of him as Chris’s other dad, who is — who is dating someone a whole lot like Eddie — who is dating another man who isn’t Eddie — and…
And, well.
Well, fuck.
“Edit: false alarm I am not homophobic. But I AM in love with, uh, Stag even though he’s dating Gatling. How do I tell him?”
Because sometimes, asking relationship advice from complete strangers online is the only reasonable way to proceed. And Eddie can only hope, desperately, that they have the answers.
AITA for being nice to a co-worker who doesn't like men?
I think a girl (20F) at my work doesn't like men. I've been going out of my way to be nice to her and nothing works. AITA? How can I get her to want to talk to me?
I'm 28M and I started at my job about 3 weeks ago. There's this girl, Brandi, I work with sometimes who I really like. I was shy as a kid and I've been trying to come out of my shell more lately, and make an effort with people. Going out of my comfort zone and talk to people, all that. So I decided to try to give Brandi 1 compliment every day I saw her. And it wasn't creep shit like "nice ass" or anything that would make her uncomfortable. Stuff like that she has a pretty smile, or beautiful eyes, or that kind of thing.
But I feel like whenever I do it, she gets kind of weird, and goes away from me. SHE HAS NOT TOLD ME TO STOP or that I make her uncomfortable. She just does kind of a weird smile and says thanks and goes away. I feel like she doesn't want to talk to me at all now. On Friday I even put a little note in the pocket of her jacket. It just said "You look nice today, Brandi!" with a smiley face. I just thought it would be nice and make her smile. She never said anything about it.
I told my sister (26F) about it and Sis said I was being an asshole and should leave Brandi alone. I calmly reminded my sister that SHE HAS NOT TOLD ME TO STOP so why would I need to? My sister didn't have a good answer so she changed the subject and wouldn't talk about Brandi any more.
Then I told my friend (32M) about Brandi, and he said she probably spends too much time on social media where women are being taught to be afraid of all men. It all clicked when he said that, it makes sense. Why else would she act like she doesn't want to be around me or talk to me, when all I do is be nice to her and try to make her happy? I also realized she talks way more to girls than men, and doesn't seem as friendly with them.
AITA for being nice to Brandi? And what can I do to show her not to be afraid of me? I don't know what nice things to say to her that I haven't already said.