That's political parties for you. Very Us vs Them. Hell, I've seen plenty of people fight over politics only to realize, after establishing a common neutral vocabulary, that they more or less agree.

Modern folks can pride ourselves on our rationality all we want. Truth is, we're still just as vulnerable to propaganda, conditioning, and misinformation as we've ever been. People are busy. Often too busy to fact-check, or too reliant on biased sources. We trust friends, family, and our favorite websites. Certain buzzwords make our brains turn off and trigger purely emotional reactions - disgust, hate, fear as well as feelings of safety, unity, pride and so on. We say what we think is rational, but the person on the other end has entirely different associations for the words used, maybe ones that make our "rational" statement threatening. That's then the basis for their response.

Our allegiances are reactionary, often inherited, and make perfect sense to us given what we know (think we know, have been told) about the world and how it works. Political bigwigs and often governments want things that way. As far as situations go, it's easier to control. They release what information they want to release, and the common masses are left fighting over (at best) incomplete truths from utterly different footing.

This is why Washington was so adamantly against two+ partly systems. How can we have productive conversations and debates while everyone is busy feeling personally attacked? While we're socially conditioned to think of "the other side" as, well, another side? We distance, dismiss, diminish everyone who disagrees with the (literal) party line - they must be clueless, utterly lacking compassion, somehow less human than we are. We can't manage to extend the slightest amount of faith in our shared humanity.

This is why US politics are basically just...fscked. We're so focused on screwing each other over that we forget we're trying to collaboratively run a country. Sure, we may have radically different ideas on the best way to do so, but we're *supposed* to - supposed to test and question and vote and develop strategies and see what works. When was the last time our arguments were genuinely over the facts and merits of an idea and voting wasn't split down party lines? Yeah. Maybe it still happens occasionally - maybe locally where we all have to look our neighbors in the eye - but it was supposed to be the rule, not the exception. Instead we get all this kvetching and petty tit-for-tat in a political atmosphere where we can't assume anyone has our (or the country's) best interest at heart.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant. It just sort of materialized. Ontological hazard.

I don't, but I might be interested. It depends on what your ideas are. 🙂

I wish there was a sub-forum here. I've been looking for RP/writing partner(s) too, but the search options on this site are pretty useless for that sort of thing.

I was teased a lot as a kid, but the moments that stand out in my mind are 1) a check-up when I was ten where the doctor pinched my belly and told me I was "quite large" and needed to get more exercise and eat more salads, 2) getting weighed every year by the school nurse in front of the other students and being made to stay after for a lecture, 3) a time I complained about my jeans being very tight and my grandmother snapped that if I got any fatter she wouldn't be able to find clothes big enough to fit my belly. I wasn't actually that big back then, maybe 20-30 lbs overweight? But people were cruel about it. I think I'd react much differently now, but it was hurtful then.

I'm Lacey. I've been trying to control my weight since I was a chubby little kid, but the harder I try the more I seem to gain! It's a turn on for me (especially when people tease/humilate me for it!) so I've recently decided to just go with it.

I'm not trying to gain right now, but then I don't really have to try. I was about 210 a few weeks ago when I decided to stop trying to lose weight, and right now I'm at about 225. Well, probably more at the moment - I'm up in the middle of the night because I ate a pint of ice cream, 6 grilled cheese sandwiches, and drank a liter of soda too late in the evening and now I can't get comfy to sleep! It's probably pretty clear that my weight is going to keep creeping up. I don't have much self control.

Oh, that's hot. I can just imagine having to turn in a receipt with my weight on it after an unintentional gain, and gossip spreading around the entire office about what a pig I've been, seeing knowing smirks everywhere...maybe even getting called to the boss' office to be asked if something is wrong and making me stress eat, only to have to look into his deeply concerned face and have to tell him that everything is fine, I'm just a piggy with no self control. I gain on accident all the time, and the thought of having so many people knowing...wow.