Someone just asked the opposite of this question here and I was wondering if there are cases were you’re just not interested in something but you know the community is great nonetheless.
Marijuana Aficionados. I’ve been straight edge my entire life but always hung out with them. Now, it is more common since legal restrictions have been lifted. The community in general is well, chill.
My dad gave me advice a hundred years ago, and it’s probably a George Carlin bit or something, but there’s a difference in philosophy between drunks and stoners. A drunk will pound a beer, or sip from a personal flask, or bring their own six pack to a party. A stoner’s first impulse is to light a joint and find someone to pass it off to. It’s communal, and it brings others into the circle, where alcohol is isolating. Obviously it’s a generalization, but it sort of fits.
Real stoners always load a full bowl.
I agree. I used the term ‘marijuana aficionado’ because I hang out with those who exclusively smoke bud straight up from the dispensary. I don’t get involved with other types of users.
it’s communal, and it brings others into the circle
As a big pot head I think this is the big point. If you see someone smoking, there’s a damn good chance they’ll let you take a smoke. But you gotta be careful, cause then you’re gonna be stuck into a 30 minute convo about nothing haha
I didn’t say “perfect chance” because one time I was in German outside a club and smelled someone smoking a joint so I mimed the smoking gesture and he called me a selfish American and then they all laughed at me haha. But then later that night they called me over to do a couple shots with them so ¯\(ツ)/¯
That sounds like Carlin, but Carlin dispensed much wisdom in his time.
My favorite story from Jack Marigold’s A Child’s Garden of Grass goes something like:
A drunk, an acidhead, and a pothead are walking through the woods. As it becomes evening, they come to a city surrounded by a wall, and in the wall is a closed door with a sign that reads: “This door is only open 9-5”. After knocking and getting no answer for a few minutes, the drunk shakes his fist and says, 'let’s smash the door down!" The acidhead peers at the doorknob for a few minutes and says, “let’s just float through the keyhole.” The pothead shakes his head and says, “naw, man; let’s just sit here and wait for it to open in the morning.”
I can’t handle pot; makes me super nauseous for the entire time I’m high. Always has. But I love the people.
Alcohol makes you act without thinking, pot makes you think without action.
Hmmm… Mayhap. IM(limited)E, there isn’t a lot of thinking going on, either.
My other favorite excerpt from ACGoG:
S: Are you hungry?
Y: No. Wait, do you mean hungry, like food, or hungry, like in a search for knowledge?
S: What the hell are you taking about?
Y: You asked if I was hungry.
S: Did I?
Y: Yes.
S: Well… are you?
Y: Am I what?I never claimed that the thoughts were always relevant to others.
The reason they don’t know what’s happening is because they’ve already moved on to thinking about other things. They’ve gone down a mental rabbit hole so fast, it’s going to take some time to get back to that conversation that was happening moments ago.
There’s also the going in got a glass of water and being found an hour later by your friend because you got such watching the sink drip :-)
I’m not down on potheads. They’re my favorite inebriated people. I wish I could join them on their journeys, but alas my genetics gifted me with a paradoxical reaction to THC.
I don’t like it and I don’t necessarily have to like the people either who also happens to like that thing. It is a possibility. Just don’t go around trying to find these people with the excuse of upsetting what they enjoy. Enjoy what you enjoy, shut up and go back to your damn corner.
Anyways, mine happens to be EDM. I don’t mind it, I always just held the opinion that it is way too same-y. There’s thousands of remixes of this song and that song and they maybe change the tone, the tune or add a few more sounds. But more or less, it is just same-y. I know lots of people feel and love this kind of genre, I just only like it but I am not really losing my mind to it whenever I hear a few tracks.
I FUCKING HATE ketchup. I can’t tolerate the taste or the texture. But I recognize that people that love ketchup are not evil, just misguided.
Same, but with onions. I love ketchup.
My wife is a huge Rush fan. I’ve been to two concerts, I don’t get it. It’s loud, it’s screechy, I can’t understand the lyrics, but they’re her favorite band.
Bought her the “Rush 50” set for our anniversary next month:
https://www.rushbackstage.com/product/6XAMRU303/r50-backstage-exclusive-super-deluxe-edition
She tolerates my taste:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nU_JDbqfgfN7-xDYOi2lzyoC9cjh7ajq4
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_liRnR3E2H7SpBrYXT-3CJye3snP3P3w5g
I worked with some people from Chile once, and they ALL loved rush. there was like 30 of them, they had in common where they came from, and rush. Like it’s a thing. Even the ones whose English was so-so knew every word to every song. I miss jamming with em. Fucking epic air drums!
I went to a concert with a mega fan and also don’t get it, that shit hurt my ears. I think Rush fans brains are all wired at some unique frequency.
Yeah, I learned after the first one to take earplugs. Not that it matters now since we lost Neil Peart (the drummer). :( No more concerts.
Boardgaming. I play an occasional boardgame with my friends, but I’m not searching youtube clips for strategies, importing first-print Euro games in the original German and printing English-language stickers for the boards, or watching Essen livestreams every year.
I fell out of D&D around 4th ed, and didn’t really care enough to get “competitive” in something like settlers of Catan. But if someone brings out something fun and simple like sorry, or candy land and I am so down!
I have always been a liberal leftist but I actually really enjoy being around old school, fiscally conservative Republicans, when they aren’t talking about politics. They tend to be softies on the inside - they value strength and tradition and care deeply for their communities and families; often more directly demonstrating that care than liberals tend to. They also don’t accept the victim mentality and tend to shoot straight with their words, and can be hilariously harsh. They are responsible and tend to follow through with their commitments.
The problem is, I can’t really stand being around them because they can’t help themselves bringing up the dumbest opinions of all time and they typically don’t like digging into fact based thinking.
Same now as 20 years ago, when they would say shit like, “pretty cold out today - don’t seem like global warming to me! Hahaha” etc etc
they value strength and tradition
And this is good because…?
Strength is good, tradition can be anything
Strength is good
Is shit that fascists say. Just a heads up.
And “tradition,” at least in this context, is almost always based in bigotry.
Fascists say some things that are normal, like anyone else; they just also say a lot of things that are evil. This one is normal. Strength is used as a tool by fascists but it in and of itself is not inherently bad.
Republican tradition is generally something that hurts our ability to make social progress, yes.
“Strength” when used in political contexts, is almost always related to some form of oppression at the very least.
I am struggling to think of a time when hearing a politician speak about “strength” could be seen as a good thing. Perhaps briefly, directly after 9/11, but before we decided to invade the wrong countries? Even then, it was more about unity than any kind of strength.
Strength, as in the power to exert your will on others, is a dangerous concept. This is the sense in which fascists use it.
Strength, as in the power to stand up for yourself, is good. We should all have the strength to fight against tyranny.
I guess I just wouldn’t use that word in the second case. Determination maybe?
Something about the horseshoe effect I’m sure. I’m the same way, I make the best of friends with conservative assholes. They care about family, water is thicker than blood, blah blah blah. It’s just the policies they vote for that I hate, which is also why I love just chatting about them. Gives me an opportunity to “know thy enemy” and have a chance to change their mind
That’s all well and good, until they vote for literal fascists who believe trans people shouldn’t exist.
At some point you need to draw a line. And even if they don’t say that shit out loud, or they pretend to disagree, they still vote for it and most of them will refuse to ever admit they were wrong for that.
You’re absolutely right. If you search my account for “good ol boy” or “from Oklahoma” you’ll find a comment where I gave a more specific example of this. I didn’t give all of these details, but I stealthed basically my entire personality for about a year and half with him while poking and prodding at his beliefs in a “curious” manner until he started getting deeper into those bills on his own and forming his own opinions.
I mentioned in that comment that he became an LGBTQ ally along the way basically by accident. Gentle curiosity about someone’s beliefs is a great way to change them
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TIL 20 years ago is 2000… not the 60s… fml
For me it’s Metal music. It’s just absolutely not my genre but an overwhelming amount of metalheads I met were just the nicest, most wholesome and fun people all around.
That’s funny. That was the first thing that popped in my head. I don’t know how to pronounce any of your favorite Scandinavian bands’ names, but I think we’ll get along just fine.
There is research and papers showing that heavy music in general can actually be therapeutic and make someone calmer, rather than the perceived opposite effect. It can be a great outlet. I listen to metal, heavy music, all the time but when I have used it as a coping mechanism, i.e. an outlet for stress, it has definitely allowed me to release such tension. Not only that, but singing/screaming to vocals along to the music surely does release all of energy, and while there are outsiders who might perceive the music as ‘angry’ the incorrect connection they’re making is that anger is an energetic emotion, as in unreleased energy/tension. Metal isn’t angry music, it is energetic. That is why it makes such good workout music. It stimulates and satisfies that part of our lives, letting us be some of the ‘nicest, most wholesome and fun people all around’.
I’d believe the research on a heartbeat. I don’t listen to metal very often and I’m pretty picky about subgenres, but when I’m in a horrible terrible mood, I’ll slap on some of the hardest most pig squealing, swallowing the microphone, quadruple bass pedal stuff I can find. After an hour or so of that, I usually feel much better.
And I’ve always loved that mostly the lyrics are not like a lot of music that is just… I love you, I stalk you, I am nothing without you … Puke
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Metal Heads will absolutely be your best friends in time of need. Need help moving a body, no questions asked? Call your metal friend.
We trash and bash in the mosh pitts, and get out our aggression. But if someone falls, you YANK them up. Many times I’ve fallen, and then suddenly felt myself lifted high into the air by the hand of god. Then I can see who lifted me, and it turns out it wasn’t god. It was a long haired, bearded, tattood muscleman. Which makes sense. I’m like 300lbs. If you’re suddenly yanking me up effortlessly, you’re a big muscle man. And then there’s other times I see women fall. I yank them up. I’m doing the right thing, I KNOW I’m doing the right thing, but the whole time I’m just like “Sorry sorry sorry sorry.” because you don’t aim where you grab. You grab and yank up, by whatever you can. You don’t want the pitt to come her way and stomp her head, not knowing she exists down there. So yank, but also “Sorry sorry sorry sorry”. I’ve yet to have any women mad at me for doing it, they get it, but MAN it feels weird just grabbing a woman like that.
Pushing, shoving, looks like a massive fist fight but it’s all love. We’re trusting them with our life. They’re trusting us with theirs. We all get super violent, and have a good time. Then the show lets out, and we’re like “Oh, you wanna go get some late night eats? Anyone know a good gyro spot?”, and we’re just friendly for the rest of the day. We’re like the Canadians of music genres. Violent when we play, and friendly the rest of the time.
Funny. For me mosh pitts don’t have association with metal. I married an ozzy fan though.
Pineapple on pizza. You’re wrong and I wanna fight you but we can still be friends and have a good time over drinks.
No I am not wrong. And I can raise you with pineapple on burger.
But have you tried pizza on pineapple? A grilled pineapple slice with all of your pizza toppings on it.
This is gonna be just like my buddy at my old job where it became an office-wide (joke) rift and everybody took sides and anytime someone new joined we’d ask them which side they were on and there was much hemming and hawing on Slack.
Grilled pineapple on a burger.
Orks.
Rugby players.
I don’t care for sports so much, but a ton of my friends play rugby. Several of my exes play rugby. I’ve got cousins who play rugby. I live in the States and, while rugby is popular, it’s no where near the levels of enthusiasm where like 90% of the people a person hangs out with plays it (and you not also play or have any real interest in it). Mostly to support people I was dating, I’ve been to like ten games in my life and, while I understand how the game is played, I’m just completely uninterested in sports and following sports as a hobby or interest. I don’t know why, but rugby people love me and I love them.
Books. I’m dyslexic as fuck but heavy readers are mostly chill people.
Did you ever get into audio books? It’s nice to have someone else read to you at bedtime or during a commute.
Ooohh ooh audio books are my bag baby yeah.
Podcasts too.
It’s all about timbre and accent. I could listen to the right voice read the phone book.
See, I have ebooks I want in audio, so I have to settle for ‘robot’ android voice when there is no ‘audiobook option’
Any good podcast recs? Any genre/subject is fine.
Ancient civilisations. Noiser network. Paul McGann is the Narrator.
Sex. Neurodivergent/nerd social circles often have a lot of kink/BDSM and otherwise sex positive people, so my friends group is pretty open about sex.
I’m on the asexual spectrum and would rather forget that sex is a thing, but I love my friends and as long as everyone is consenting and safe, I’m happy for them. I sometimes get awkward when sex convos happen around me, but hey, I get awkward with many other convos too.
I’m a part of the wrong nerd circles. Most of mine consist of one token furry, a couple lbgtqia+'s, an aging jock who clearly hasn’t grown up since highschool(but they were pretty cool in highschool as well) and a weirdly successful dude who you would never guess it. I don’t think any of them talked about sex with one another.
So there’s a lot of research suggesting neurodivergence has strong correlation with LGBT+ and there’s some indicating the BDSM correlation (not saying they are the same/related, but people who are in touch with themselves enough to identify as LGBT+ are more likely to be open about sexuality in general in my experience). It’s so present in my various social circles that I’ve connected nerd & neurodivergent and thought of those as the common factor.
But I realize there’s another commonality I hadn’t considered: they’re very community-oriented and attend community gatherings. There are three groups I’m thinking of: one has a ton of burners (not actually Burning Man, but smaller local variants), another are Quakers (and more specifically those who attend large regional/national gatherings), and the last are people who religiously attend DragonCon.
Maybe that has more to do with the sex-positivity and openness than the nerd piece? I don’t know. I just know I’m surrounded by it somehow, lol.
Punk/Emo Style
I’m not into other girls, but I’ve got lesbian friends who are great! 😃
I’m not into guys but I’ve got pan/bi/het friends who are great! 😃
I’m a cishet dude and all but one of my friends are some combination of gay, bi, or trans
Anime. I don’t get it, but boy those anime girls are so cute. <3
