Alright, so my son is friends with a kid at his school, and through this I met his mother. She is a nice woman, who is attractive and friendly. What I do know about her is that she and her husband are separated and/or divorced. I do not know if she is seeing anybody.

I have an unsuccessful history of assuming things with women who are nice to me; i.e., I often confuse being nice with them showing a romantic interest, and that not being the case. Given that my son and her son are best friends, I do not want to make this mistake and make things awkward for anybody. Given my unsuccessful history of reading social cues, I want to be careful in how I interact with her.

I feel like I have three choices right now: I could continue my current course of action, and interact with her when my son and her son get together; I could text her and try to strike up a conversation out of the blue; or I could add her as a Facebook friend and from that angle try to strike up conversation.

I don’t necessarily want to go the “do nothing and hope it works out” approach, but I am not sure if I would make her uncomfortable by being too direct. I’m kind of leaning toward the Facebook option, but I am curious if I should ask her if she’s ok with me requesting to be her friend (and possibly sparking a conversation that way, but letting her know it’s okay to say no if she’s not comfortable with it).

And before anybody says it, yes I’m aware I’m probably overthinking it. 😊

Also, I hope this doesn’t break the grotesque rule. 😏

As of 10:15am EST, I am no longer married. From what I’ve heard from other divorcees, my ex wife and I have had a unicorn of a separation; in that we still get along and work together for our kids. Regardless of how frictionless the process has gone, it’s still a relief to put that chapter to rest.

If there is a better community to ask, I’d be happy to post there. I am looking for ideas for a color to paint my living room, based on my accent colors.

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It might be hard to tell from the photo, but the walls are a light grey. And I’m going for a farmhouse/country feel.

Thanks!

I just wanted to test the posting fix in 2.0 (89), and at the same time give a huge shout out to the people who are making all of this possible. You all are a quiet and sneaky bunch, but your hard work does not go unnoticed.

Two panel comic strip shows Everett True in a butcher shop, after receiving his parcel he beckons the butcher, when the butcher returns True pushes his head down to the counter so he can get a closer look at the change he has left after the transaction. True asks the butcher if, perhaps, he shouldn't "wrap up the change, too?" He complains that "it's all smeared over with blood and grease" and tells him to "Clean it off!!!"

https://www.loc.gov/item/2004666590/

I was looking around for some specific comics, when I ran across an archived version of the 1907 book titled The Outbursts of Everett True. I was going to link directly to the PDF, but thought some people might like the source page better.

I have been looking for below-knee cargo shorts that have a gusset. Every short I buy inevitably rips in the crotch, and I feel a gusset would protect against that.

I’ve seen someone in public wearing a gusseted below-knee pair of shorts, and I regret not asking where they got them (though guys don’t typically talk fashion).

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Hopefully you all will be able to help me with some questions I have about growing bamboo.

I just had a fence installed, and unfortunately the ground is not flat, so there are some gaps at the bottom of the fence. I was thinking I could build some raised garden beds along the base of my fence to block the gaps, and pretty up what otherwise is a very crappy yard (no grass, mostly trees).

Since bamboo is pretty invasive, I know it’s not something I would want to just plant anywhere. I was wondering if it would make any difference if I planted the bamboo in raised garden beds? Would that make it easier to control? If not, is there some other low-maintenance plant I could use that would look good along a fence?

I mainly use the Mlem app, and today I got a notification that I had one new inbox item. When I checked my inbox, I saw that it was empty.

Before I submitted a big report, I wanted to see what happened on the lemmy.world website. As shown in the attached screenshot, it too shows one unread item, but nothing in the inbox.

So I’m led to believe this is an issue with the server. And if not, then at least I have done my due diligence before reporting this to the Lemmy devs.

In either case, is there anybody here who could help me get this resolved; or at least pointed in the right direction?

Thank you!

Since August of last year, I’ve been coming to terms with my divorce, being single, sharing custody of my two children, and starting over in a new home of my own. It wasn’t easy, and it’s been downright lonely sometimes, not having someone to talk to and share my thoughts with.

I’ve worked hard, put in the effort, and finally I came to terms with my being by myself. I thought so, at least. Then I needed some work done in my house, so I asked on NextDoor for recommendations, and you were the first to reach out to me. So I scheduled a time for you to come out to take a look at the work to be done.

I opened the door, and there you stood. You smiled at me and said hi. I kid you not when I say that my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe how beautiful you were. Your eyes were so amazing. Your smile was warm and inviting. Of course, I don’t want to be “that guy” and say anything. You were there for a job after all. And we didn’t know each other.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and you asked to call me about another job I needed done. We talked for a few hours on the phone, about more than just a job. I hate talking on the phone. But you made it easy. We talked about our failed marriages, and our kids. We talked about how we have a lot in common. I enjoyed it so much. I allowed myself to get hopeful.

But again, I didn’t want to be “that guy”, and I certainly didn’t want you to feel like my business hinged on my being attracted to you. You’ve done nothing wrong. But I can’t stop thinking about you, and hoping to find a natural opportunity to ask you to dinner. But should I? Worse yet, I may have to turn your quote down, because damn she’s expensive. I’m confused. Wouldn’t that be especially fucked up of me? It feels fucked up of me to consider it.

I feel like I do this to myself. I latch my feelings onto somebody I know I can’t be with, and I do it because it’s safer than putting myself out there in real life. I hype the person up so much in my mind, that I scare myself into believing that they would be abhorred at me if they found out. Maybe I do it because I believe deep down that I don’t deserve to be happy. That someone like her would have nothing to do with a guy like me.

This time, though, I feel it’s somehow different. I get butterflies thinking about her. I can’t remember the last time I had butterflies of any kind for someone. I genuinely feel like we have a lot in common. It feels right. And I want to deserve her. I want to be happy. What should I do?

I’ve done IT. I’ve finally mastered IT (couldn’t resist 😁).

I’ve been in school (part time) since 2019 working my way to this day. Now that it’s here, I’m both super excited and a little anxious. Now what do I do? 🤣

Anyway, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

> Most patients predicted that their worst symptoms when exposed to gluten would be classic lower digestive problems like diarrhea, bloating and cramps. However, none of these occurred during the acute immune responses observed by Anderson’s team. Instead, patients experienced nausea and vomiting. Anderson describes them as, “acute food poisoning symptoms that are early in onset,” and relatively severe. > > “For all the years that we’ve known about celiac disease, persons have told us that they had these acute reactions, but many experts in the field dismissed them as being just in the person’s mind,” says Anderson. “Here we are now, a hundred years after celiac disease was discovered, suddenly discovering, yes, the patients were right.”

Nausea and Vomiting Mark Gluten Exposure in Celiac Disease 🙄

(Emphasis mine)

First of all, Happy Friday everybody! And for those ahead of the curve: Saturday. 😊

So I’m a 40-cough-cough-something year old who has been in grad school since 2020. I work full time, have kids, just bought a new house, and yada yada - I’m a busy guy.

So it is with great pleasure to announce that I have turned the corner to the last leg of my journey to my Masters of Information Technology! (A little humble-brag that I will also be graduating Magna Cum Laude)

I have one more week to go, with a 30-minute video presentation on the UNICORN: Runtime Provenance-Based Detector for Advanced Persistent Threats academic paper, and then I am finally a free man!

Anyway, that’s enough of your time. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, and have a great day or night!

For mental health reasons, I had taken myself out of most political topics. But lately there seems to be a surge of talk about Palestine and Hamas (forgive me if I spelled this wrong). I do know it’s something to do with land rights, but it also seems to be so much more at the same time. I’m not trying to start any fights. I just want to understand. Thank you.

So my last post here was a tad bit on the negative side, so this post will balance that out with some positive news. As terrifying as it is right now to me, I just booked myself a week-long vacation to Puerto Rico. Solo. By myself. I'm certainly thrilled as well as terrified. But, I feel like this is the kind of move I need to make to help lament my new-found independence since I'm getting divorced; that, and it beats putzing around my apartment by myself. At least this way, I can make my mark and some memories.

By the way, if anybody has any traveling tips, I'm all eyes.

I hope you all don't mind, but it's been a rough day for me emotionally, and I feel like I need some emotional support. I don't have anyone in my life I can turn to with this, so I thought of you all.

I'm a guy, and I have/had (not sure right now) a female friend who I know likes me more than I like her; I thought I was clear with her my intentions to be friends, but I feel like I muddied the waters by being flirty and making jokes - that's on me, and I own that. Anyway, I feel like I may have scared her last night by being too honest with who I was in my past (just details about past relationships and my lack of fidelity in them). I could tell instantly that her tone changed (we were talking over text message).

She asked me again what my intentions were, and I reiterated that I wanted to be friends. She says she's good with that, but I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it, maybe not. But it weighs heavily on me, especially because I don't really have many people I feel like I can talk to and be open with, like I can her. So that's the first strike of my day today.

On a less dramatic scale, I overslept this morning and was late taking my kids to school. They got there, a little later than usual, but still on time, so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be when I first woke up. I work from home, so I decided to take a nap when I got back from dropping the kids off, and again I overslept (this time for a meeting at work). I was only a few minutes late to that, but it's way out of character for me and I feel like that was strike two.

I had a doctor appointment later in the day, and there is a nurse there that I talk to (shoot the shit, as it were) and have been contemplating asking out. Nothing major really, but I don't usually ask people out while they are working. But, at the same time, I know that a) I don't see her that often, and 2) never see her outside of her work, and c) I was feeling a real connection with her. So, after a lot of internal back and forth over the past two weeks, I hyped myself up yesterday to ask her out. But after the morning I had this morning, I felt the universe was trying to warn me not to push my luck. So I had even more back and forth with myself (very draining, mind you). Ultimately, I casually asked her to a local event coming up, and she kindly and politely let me know she was already seeing someone. I wasn't surprised or put off by her response, but for some reason I'm still kicking myself. Probably along the lines of an "I told you so" to myself. I'm going to call a ball on that one, because I think I was just upset from this morning, and this was just poor timing on my part given the circumstances.

So I go home and take a nap (I do this a lot) until my kids come home. I cook them dinner, which they loved (hamburgers) and we watch some TV and play a couple games of chess. Come bed time, my youngest son throws a fit because I wanted him to keep his door partly cracked open so I could make sure he wasn't laying in bed when he should be getting ready for bed (he's 8, and bad habit of not doing what he says he's going to do, especially when he doesn't want to do it). Mind you, I could not see him change, and I only had a partial line of sight to his bed. It has to do with how the hallway is lined up with his doorway. Either way, it really hits me hard when either of my kids get upset (especially at me). Steeee-rike three.

I know that none of the above is detrimental or super big deals. Even taken together, it's just a shitty day. I think it doesn't help that I suffer from long-term depression, have treatment-resistent depression, work has been super stressful, I'm in the midst of a divorce, and like I said earlier I don't have a lot of friends I can be open with. Plus, I'm sure ITA in there somewhere. I feel like I usually am.

Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for listening. Feel free to roast me; I probably deserve it. And I apologize for being pitiful.

When scrolling through Lemmy, I often will see the same posts from the previous page - usually as the first links on the current page I'm on.