you might as well flirt with anyone you want at wherever you see them, but do it politely and move on if she says no.

Yeah that’s about all you can do in reality.

Just remember not to be persistent if it feels off immediately, do not violate anyone’s space more than necessary (do not go for physical contact as a rule of thumb, strike up a conversation instead, if unsure of social rules) and most importantly, listen to them and try your best to take the hint if they can’t find a way to be direct and instead attempt to politely fend you off.

But there are a lot of social rules and cues everyone should be aware of, which definitely makes it hard for those unable to feel them. It doesn’t mean you can’t try your darnest though. Intent is important, so as long as you mean no harm, and do not break the obvious rules of personal space and no is no, nothing irreversible will happen.

It is and will be awkward, but it often is for us too who can sense and understand (at least most of) the “rules”. That’s just being human.

The worst is if you overthink it. Just figure if it’s appropriate and follow some sensible rules of thumb if it’s hard to sense the appropriateness, and then be the awkward clumsy you that most of everyone is in context like this.

Even if you radiate charm, are a natural with words and gestures, are in perfect harmony with the ambiguous rules of social interactions etc, you’re bound to misread people and situations sooner rather than later, and that’s just something that happens.

Being human is… very human. That is, awkward and clumsy and often disappointing. The upside is that it’s also surprising, exciting, invigorating and so full of possibilities and such joy, if you just manage to get past the also very human aversion to any potential awkwardness or disappointments.

This became a weird rant. But as someone with adhd and some weird natural drive for other humans that I haven’t been able to understand myself, I do often fail to think things through and approach people without much thinking. I have the benefit of naturally not overthinking it until after the fact. The world has never ended and I’ve lived a colorful, socially rich life, and for whatever it’s worth, I’ve not ended up being perceived as a creep or a threat or whatever, at least not widely so. So that tells me it’s pretty hard to cause any real damage to yourself or others as long as you’re respectful, aware of the dynamic and even if not fully aware of the social cues and rules, follow a set of your own rules of thumb that you find result in socially acceptable behaviour.

Don’t let the fear of unknown or being ridiculed or whatever block you from having meaningful social interactions. Even the most charismatic or naturally social and talkative of us end up in awkward situations and sometimes end up disappointed or ashamed for reading the cues wrong. Stuff happens. That’s life. For everyone.

But just try and be mindful of the place, the time, the surroundings, and do not violate anyone’s personal space more than necessary, and take no as an answer immediately if even hinted at. Might sound like even that’s a lot, but in time, with practice, as with just about everything else we do, these things will start coming naturally and built in in our everyday goings on.

Trust in yourself if you mean no harm. That’s about it. No one can fault someone with good intentions and respectful manners, if they keep their space and don’t persist when told or hinted no. You might get ashamed or even shocked for how wrong you read stuff, but again, that happens to everyone, even if rarely. We are all humans, and there’s a baseline level of awkwardness and inability to really read anyone’s mind that comes with the territory. So just try and trust yourself in that.

Now. Especially if I’d upgrade to a life of an average person! I have adhd and recurring clinical depression that cause all sorts of problems, and have done so for all my life. I assume the average would be not to have those, at least not together, I hope. (Edit: but on the other hand the average person would have significantly worse situation, forgot to check my privilege in that regard, so thought I’d explicitly state my acknowledgement here)

But even if I continued as myself, I would 100% choose what I have over a circa 1500 monarch. That’s not even tough a choice to make.

The only reason I can see anyone would choose the monarch life is if they enjoyed (undeserved and unwarranted) authority and power over others. I loathe the concept to begin with, so it’s really not even a choice.

Would I be dead rather than a monarch at that time? Now that one is tougher. I’d probably rather check out the world at that point of time, maybe attempt some sort of progressive rule, but I’d be dead before I can get anything meaningful done, I bet. If not by rivals desiring the crown, then just the lack of antibiotics and whatnot. And if I retain my adhd and depression, yeah, I’m fairly likely to just off myself before soon…

Edit: Continuing from the initial edit above; While I’d probably be mentally more stable and healthy, I’d probably have a lot of other problems that I would rather not deal with. So all in all, I would hope there would be an option for things to stay as they are. I am privileged, living in a privileged situation, healthy other than mentally, so I believe I have it better than any average at any point of history, and furthermore, better than even the richest monarchs back in the time. It is sad that this is the reality, but then again, I did not choose this life, and I suppose the appropriate response to being forced to it, is acknowledge the privileges and try and make the world just a little bit better with what little resources I have as an individual and a member of several social circles and hierarchies.

Rain. Or, rather, the sweet earthy smell of wet moss or grass and decomposition and the rest of it that is far beyond any human descriptions and impossible to even approach with words 🥹

Combined with the sound, it’s the most divine state a world can exist in, period.

That would be entirely normal and unavoidable sounds of life that just about anyone ought to be able to live with and sleep with. How did they manage when they lived with their parents? Roommates? Wherever else before you? I can’t think of a single way to live without minor sounds of bumps and such, unless they lived all their life in the woods, alone, far from everyone else (and even then the nature is full of sounds…).

But then again I am not saying it necessarily has to be malicious or unhealthy like that, it might just be lacking context for me here. But it just doesn’t add up, does it? How do they sleep when it storms outside? Are there no traffic or neighbors close by? I can’t imagine you could be so clumsy as to be more noisy than the general “silence” pretty much anywhere I can think of, every time you are awake past him. That sounds like internalized (and unreasonable or outright false) blame to me. But then again I don’t know you or them or the situation.

Stay safe friend.

Yeah I do not think ADHD is the problem here…

Why can’t they start sleeping alone? Why do they require you for sleeping? Can you not join later when it’s convenient for you? Or if they are a light sleeper, sleep on the couch then?

I see so many things that I find extremely suspicious and weird. I would not think a relationship like that can ever last or can even be good, but of course that is just my view, I do not know you and maybe you are entirely happy. Which is good of course if that is the case.

But if it is not, I would seriously consider if whatever situation you’ve got going is actually good and correct for you. That sounds toxic to me.

And peach, too!

Edit: I’m taking the middle road here and assuming something around year 1250 or so, not 1100 or 1400 as confusingly set in OP.

Okay, so unlike most other scenarios, I think I would be fine for a while at least. The peoples living where I live would have made and kept more or less regular contact with the sons of bitches from the south that would later crusade us (or I think maybe one of the crusades is presently ongoing at the time…) so while I would both introduce and be hit with diseases or more likely strains of familiar ones new to my body/their bodies, I think it wouldn’t be as destructive as entirely separated landmasses like America vs Europe.

So if I survive the shock my body gets hit with, and I don’t kill everyone around me, I think I would be fairly well received. As far as I’ve read, the languages and dialects were different than after the formalization of the written form, and at this time these lands were just starting to get forced under Swedish rule, so with my basic understanding of Swedish and of course my native language, I think I would be able to communicate well enough to not get instantly killed as a demon or something.

I think my best bet would be to introduce myself as some sort of demi-god, a bastard son of the god of forests and the hunt probably, which would hopefully explain my alien attire and materials used to make them. And the alien accent/dialect of both the local language or Swedish, depending on where I’d land. If the first contact I make aren’t local but crusaders, I suppose I’d have to try and push myself as a wandering preacher of Christ or something. I’d have to hope they’d speak Swedish, since I do not know German well enough to form two words together, and they’d likely be the next likely encounters. Novgorodians I think were fine with the Swedish language in general, so if our current knowledge of history was off enough that I’d meet them here, I’d still be fine. No idea what I’d pretend to be to them though. My limited knowledge of history doesn’t help there. But as far as I understand, they were sort of a melting pot of close-by cultures, and not so focused on these lands at this time, they’d just take me for a local hermit and let me run off clumsily.

If I was able to survive the first encounters and get myself to a village or a hillfort, I’d try and establish myself as a wise one, helping with calculations and engineering and whatnot to the best of my capabilities, which I would think honestly should far exceed those of the locals at the time. So maybe I’d get by just for being useful and knowledgeable.

But I don’t think I’d live a long life. These were a turbulent and violent time and one village elder or the other, fancying themself a king or whatever, would just send assassins to off me for being an asset for the local leader where I’d end up in.

Even if I’d travel to avoid this problem, it probably wouldn’t take until my old ages to have someone or something off me just by happenstance. And I wouldn’t want to live a hermit in a time where internet or computers aren’t a thing. I think the only way to cope would be to focus on a family, try and bring up children and have that fulfill my life as best it can, as long as it can.

Honestly, I consider myself lucky in this scenario. We still have our language alive and in use, the same the locals would speak at that time. This together with the general superstitious nature of the local tribes — which the crusades and Christianity, with overt blood and sadistic violence, would (thankfully later, I hope for my sake here, at least according to our current knowledge) succeed in some amount to water down and turn them to its specific flavor of lame ass superstition — would make it probably at least somewhat likely I wouldn’t be killed on sight or something to that effect.

My advanced activities consists primarily of hiking and on a more frequent and casual form day-to-day, just carrying heavy and bulky stuff around.

I was born and raised in the vast wildernesses, forests, wetlands and the old mountains/fells of the Fennoscandic Lappland, so hiking and walking in nature in general has been a big part of my life since I was a wee lad. Even as a teen the closest thing counting as something close to a city was some 200km away, and I spent my pre-teens in a small remote village of 300 inhabitants not so close to anything bigger. Closest village with a church and a few shops a few tens of kilometers away. This is all to give the context in that I haven’t even had much chance to do stuff other than wandering in the wilderness, so whatever I now am has been built and predicated on that mostly.

I have found that the usual form of hiking and backpacking (in nature) in places not requiring special tools or equipment (such as for cliff climbing) seems to favor building up upper body bulk and strength as opposed to a general lightweight build. If we are to assume the logic you suggest is universal and true.

I haven’t been to gym or actively building up my mass or strength, but I’ve grown to be quite heavy on my upper body just by loving hiking and traversing wilderness and fells with a backpack and camping equipment. I’ve also grown pretty hefty thighs and legs overall.

I’ve attempted climbing (in a hall setting, you know as a total beginner) and I’ve got to say: My build is entirely wrong for that. I’m not very agile and the weight the muscles bring makes me very unstable and really bad at swinging/maneuvering. Of course it’s mostly that I’m a total stranger to that and probably would get a lot better with a lot of patience and training, but then my friends with lighter, more usual build (from hobbies in jogging, tennis, soccer or such) with exactly as little experience or knowhow in climbing, were all so much more natural in all that, in much less time and with much fewer attempts.

This is all to say, that your usual hiking and backpacking (especially on a multi-night, even a weeklong carry) is probably not so directly building towards climbing itself, or a lighter build. I think it tends to favor bulkiness to sustain the required carrying weight and the tough, varying terrain. But running of course does favor lightness, maybe the well-paved tourist trails do too, in terms of hiking, but even then you’re going to have to carry a lot and keep a modest pace to be able to sustain the energy for the long haul, while still being able to power through the hills, the ravines, the fells and the deep thick forests with a lot of trunks, large glacial erratics etc, with the weight on your shoulders and back, which I think is pretty much all of it disadvantageous on a lighter build(?)

But that’s neither here or there, just thought I’d offer a differing anecdote. Otherwise I think your (and others’!) points are great!

So are men. Flooded with choices on dating apps and otherwise. It also puts women in competition. And others. It’s not a gendered problem. It’s an attitude problem.

The amount of effort is very likely way more equal to that of those “others” have to expend than most would concede, it’s just that some of the young boys aren’t taught to have a spine and as such expect everything to be easy, then get majorly disappointed when that isn’t the case. World is tough, life is hard, you have to actually fight along the way and struggle to get to places. Just about everyone else already knows this by heart, but some men are barely starting catching up.

Patriarchy isn’t as alive as it was, though very much alive still, so their expectations just no longer match the reality. And that’s a bummer. Boo hoo. Makes them commit mass murder, school shootings, but more widely, outside of those extremes, just fall in love with toxic men with a platform that actually do speak of things that better match their expectations.

It’s simply that some young men are pampered little babies that aren’t adapting to a less powerful patriarchy and have zero idea how to actually live in this world as a normal person without an excess of privileges.

And that’s often just an upbringing thing. And a complex one at that, with not just the parents at fault. Society was, and still is, patriarchal and unequal in so many ways, but slowly gets better at least in west. It’s not the fault of the young men that get sucked into this, they never were taught better. That’s the problem more than anything.

And before anyone comes in pointing fingers, I was assigned man at birth and am still an enby in part presenting as masculine. I know the privilege, and I do also know how hard it is to accept the fact that everything’s easier for us, when your heart feels like everything is hard. That’s just a bummer, but everyone has got it hard. More hard than me. A tough thing to see and recognize, because suddenly my struggle isn’t special. But really, it isn’t though. But that’s not the expectation young men have for some reason… Not always anyway.

The toxic young men still are the minority, it’s worth recognizing that too. But they are very loud and very hurt little babies :-( we have to suffer through their incapability to adapt to reality by possibly even just dying in one of their mass shootings.

It’s fucked up, and I’m not sure if there’s anything or anyone we can easily blame. And no easy answers either. I hate this part of reality.

If you do not need it, how about selling it off to someone who actually needs it…?

Oh wow, hadn’t heard of graphite/graphene yet, and it looks so interesting! I rarely explicitly thank a comment that gave me a lot personally, but this time I think I have to. The graphene framework and the concept of artwork as compiled programs is pretty intriguing read! Thanks a bunch!

Well, I lived in such conditions most of my adulthood before having a kid to care for, and it was possible precisely because it was just me. Either it was a small town not even close to a big city, or it was a small town at the outskirts of a big city, some 20-30km away. I loved it. Still do.

But it’s so hard to uproot once you have all the other stuff like not only your own job, but also your partner’s. And kid’s school or daycare or whatever. And then having to work out the bus routes for the small humans and figure whether or not it’d be plausible for them to adjust to that and not get burned out or lost or confused or whatever.

And once you need more space, it’s much harder to find places to rent in the small towns. Mostly for sale, if it’s beyond two bedrooms. And in that case it’s much more complicated since you need to go to the effort of getting the place evaluated, arranging the loans and finances so you can pull it off, and that’s a big decision since it’ll probably lock you in there for quite some while, because small towns don’t move houses fast if you decide to go, so you could be looking at years before you get the sale done and another mortgage.

It’s just so hard. Once you are in the city, it’s hard to leave. And the more you root in the city, the harder it gets.

I hate it. I hate the city. I hate most about it.

But I love my family and would suffer in a city until my death if that’s what it takes to keep it together.

But as a positive anecdote, in my life prior to rooting down, as a younger and more adventurous human, I found that maintaining a community and a good group of friends even somewhat far away from the rest of them is easy and most importantly, comes easy. Its natural. I never found community a problem, because I always had a few groups of friends and it was always enough for us to touch ground together only monthly or every other month, so our location wasn’t really a concern. Most of us lived apart anyway. And the actual day-to-day sense of community came from work or uni or that kind of thing. I was never alone, though I lived blissfully far from most everyone.

So the only thing that really makes it difficult is trying to find a way and a good timing for not only one, but three+ people to move at once with all of them being happy with it. That’s a puzzle I’ve found near impossible to crack.

If we had a lot of money saved or good enough jobs to get a nest egg going, the problems likely wouldn’t matter and could very easily be worked around. But alas, we are just lower middle class, and while we are well enough off, moving is a completely life changing and paradigm shifting thing. It’s not something to choose lightly.

Maybe that plays a part within your group of acquaintances too? My work is even WFM and my partner could likely commute easily from most of the options we have within 100km. So technically we have a lot going for it. Should be easier.

But it’s not. Life is complex.

Edit: For context, I’m in Europe too.

Besides, the tickling and scratching and poking of the grass isn’t really helping with the mood. Or the ticks. Or those random small rocks and/or roots and/or dried rabbit shits.

Or that one group of crows intently watching you from the tree close by and laughing at you

That’d be impossible for the psyche to actively pursue every single day.

I would recognize my limitations and the framework of reality, and I’d probably just start a website that I update every morning. That’s pretty much all I can do if it’s daily. Ignoring it would feel horrible and guilty, but actively dedicating all my time to try and find these people on a daily basis? That’s a surefire recipe for burnout and still, very damaged psyche because of all of those I got close to but didn’t get in touch of in time.

I hope, as it turns out to actually be true and the premonitions hold, word of mouth would get enough people interested that I can feel good enough about it, but also maintain the routine without fear of burning out.

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Really, talking realistically I’d move far north domestically, far from cities.

But if we’re talking ideally, I would definitely love Longyearbyen or the region in general. But that’s not even remotely feasible, if we are being entirely honest.

Fair enough. I’m not going to, nor do I want to, dissuade you from continuing your search and believing what you believe, just wanted to get a better understanding on how you reason about these things. And initially I had hoped also to spark some questions and maybe second thoughts on your part.

For the record, I’m not entirely following your chain of thought here, and I do not believe as you believe, nor do I really see the the distinction you posed just now, but who knows, maybe I’m wrong and it turns out you’re right.

But you do choose to believe in aliens and ghosts, despite there being a lot more claimed evidence even in today’s world towards god?

Or do you think that aliens and/or ghosts can be confirmed to a greater extent than a god? What is the difference?

Okay, so now that the requirements are even further defined, let us continue applying them.

God must be real.

Do you believe in god?

Okay, well let’s apply that newly specified set of requirements.

Earth must be flat for the same reason. There’s even more evidence for it than for aliens, across history, across continents and cultures, and there’s plenty of content regarding it in the modern world too, independent of any specific locale.

Do you believe the world is flat?