u/DG-Creator

A single tortilla has 200 calories, according to the nutritional label. But does it really??? I find it very hard to believe. It's flour and water. It's so flat, there must be so little flour in it. A bag of cashews can have as much as 800 calories in it. Really? Eating a bag of nuts is the same thing as eating a Burger King Whopper? Sometimes I really find it hard to believe. How can it be that some of these seemingly innocent foods can be so calorie heavy? 🥺

I often find myself either in trouble or in an embarrassing situation because I "wasn't supposed to" do something. Except that no one ever told me until after the fact. I am ADHD and neurodivergent, I'm wondering what I may be missing that this keeps happening to me. How do you figure out what the rules are when no one ever communicates them to you?

The most recent embarrassing situation: There was leftover freshly-bread at a party, the host told everyone to take bread home, otherwise it would go stale. So I took half a loaf of bread (there was still a lot of bread leftover). Today I got a message saying, "You took the entire loaf that [so-and-so] baked! It was his loaf, and you took it!" I was mortified and apologized profusely. I was told: "Ha ha, no big deal, it's just funny." It's not funny to me, it's very embarrassing. So the million dollar question is: How was I supposed to know not to take that loaf of literally no one communicated to me that I wasn't supposed to take it? And this is just one example out of hundreds.

It's happened many times -- I'm literally arriving home, when I receive a text: "When are you arriving home?" And I'm literally parking, about to come through the door. When I say this has happened many times, I'm not kidding. Like, dozens of times. Or I'm walking over to wash the dishes -- literally walking over to do it, when from the other room comes the request: "Hey, can you wash the dishes?"

Here are the problems with this:

1. The irony is catastrophic, and so mentally hard to deal with.

2. It makes me feel that I'm always a minute (or less than a minute) late

3. No one will EVER believe that I was actually about to do it. There's no way to prove it

So, what do you do in this situation? How do you prevent it from happening? How do you mentally cope with it when it happens? Is it reasonable to allow this to bother me so much?

Conventional advice is to announce what I'm doing ahead of time. (Like, text 5 minutes before I arrive that I'm on the way.) But it's not realistic to do this all the time. So, what is a good solution?

Been on a calorie deficit for 4 months now, started at 225 pounds and now at 181. I've been trying to lose that last pound in order to reach the 180 milestone, but I've been stuck for 2 weeks (aurgh!). Interestingly, I've been increasing in exercise the last 2 weeks -- which should accelerate the weight loss. Is it possible that sometimes exercise can actually prevent it in certain situations?

Been on a calorie deficit for several months now. I was losing weight faster in the beginning, now it's taking me longer to lose. I have heard that this is a common thing; the less you weigh, the slower you lose. I've been running and swimming lately to try and accelerate things, but I don't think it's working; I don't notice a difference. Does exercise really help with losing weight? Or is it just one of those things you do to feel like you are? (I mean, we as a society do quite a few things in order to feel good without actually making progress with something, so I'm wondering if exercise is one of them.)

Most of my life, and with most of the friends I've ever had, the friendship is only maintained through me reaching out; rarely ever vice versa. I'm looking for advice on how to change that.

As an example: If a friend from another city comes to visit my city, they will never reach out to meet up. Not unless I take the initiative and reach out myself (and usually I have to be the one who plans and arrange the meetup). If I sit there and wait for the friend to reach out, 98% of the time it will never happen.

I host far more than I am invited out. Not only that, but many times a friend will accept my invitation, but then ghost at the last minute and not show up. Actually getting an invitation from a friend is quite the rarity.

What can I do -- and what social strategies can I employ -- to become that friend who's on radar and is reached out to instead of having to do all the reaching out myself?

At work, sometimes I'd like to start a conversation with a coworker. I only know 2 ways to do so, and they're not very effective:

1. "How are you?" I'll say. The coworker responds, "I'm fine, how are you?" And I'll respond, "I'm fine." And then the conversation just dies.

2. Talk about the weather. "Gee, it sure is hot today, isn't it?" I'll say. "Yeah, sure is. It's so hot!" responds the coworker. And then the conversation just dies.

It seems that the tricky thing about starting a conversation is that you're not supposed to "try" to start one. It's just supposed to happen naturally. So... how do you spur a conversation to naturally happen?

I'm new to making sushi, and getting mixed opinions of whether to use an entire square of nori or half (a rectangle) of nori per roll. When I do a square, the pieces seem a bit too big. When I cut in half, it's more difficult to roll, and I end up mutilating the entire roll when I try and slice into pieces. So should I stick with rolling the whole square, or is it supposed to be half?

I've been trying to improve my Spanish comprehension by watching YouTube videos with captions. The big problem: Often I want to rewind and listen again to a sentence a character said (in some cases several times in a row). Unfortunately, this requires me to guess how many seconds to go back, and usually I guess wrong. What I really need is an app with a "smart rewind" -- where I can push a button and have it automatically jump back to the start of a sentence. I have heard that Lingopie does this -- but I'm not sure; and it's hard to trust Google on this. Before I pay for a description I need to know -- does Lingopie definitely have this option? If not, do you know what app does?

I weighed 225 pounds at first (I'm about 5-11 in height). Lost 30 pounds so far through healthier eating and exercise. I work in a warehouse, and my back has been hurting the last couple of weeks. I've never had backaches before. Has anyone experienced this, or is aware if there's a connection?

​

(I just turned 41, so it could just be that I'm getting older and would have had this problem regardless -- a coincidence, in other words.)

I've been learning Spanish for two years now, I've been told by some native speakers that I'm making good progress. But one area where I struggle is listening comprehension -- understanding people when they speak. (I can read Spanish much much better than I can understand speech.) When I hear people having a conversation in Spanish, I struggle with not getting discouraged. Does anyone relate?

I noticed that most gamebooks are more or less the same genre -- let's call it "DND style." You are a character who is either a warrior or a magic user of some kind, venturing forth on a medieval quest, often following a map and encountering combat situations and the occasional side quest. Your objective is to save the village from the dark wizard, find the secret magic treasure, or something of that nature. Does anyone know any gamebooks that break away from this genre -- maybe even ones that are set in the present and not in a medieval high fantasy world?

Not too long ago I made a new thing: A choice-based narrative combined with fill-in-the-blanks to generate a unique narrative.

You might particularly enjoy this if you are a fan of Game of Thrones. You must combat the Mountain -- a very feared warrior. The choices you make -- plus a little bit of luck -- will determine whether you win or lose.

This game only takes a minute or so to play. Just make the choices and fill in the blanks.

Note: Let me know your thoughts on this. TBH I have introduced this to the Game of Thrones community, but received very few clicks. I'm wondering if this was as good an idea as I thought it was -- or if it's just that my advertising skills need work. I thought this was an entertaining idea, what do you think?

So basically, the question I'm about to ask is about a different subreddit, and you'll see in a moment why I need to ask this here specifically.

This subreddit, obviously, is for interactive fiction -- which for the most part means RPGs, gamebooks and text adventures (or any subcategory of the genre). The common denominator is: a branching story where you make choices and arrive at different situations and choices depending on your choices.

But there is another subreddit titled "r/interactiveCYOA." That subreddit is also for interactive fiction -- but specifically *non-branching* stories. In these stories (mostly found in Neocities, but also sources on other platforms) you make choices, but *the story continues the exact same way regardless of choice* -- and it's always the exact same ending. There is no branching at all -- it is simply about making choices. That's literally the end of it.

I don't understand the appeal. But interestingly (and no offense) -- that subreddit is far more hopping than this one. Apparently there is a humongous fan base for that kind of CYOA.

But I don't get why????? I'm wondering if someone can explain it. What is the fun in a non-branching CYOA?

(I feel that I cannot ask this question over there lest fans think I'm trolling; also I kind of need an "outsider" to answer this question -- I'm really curious about the psychology here, why there would be so many fans of this genre.)

In the books, his death was devastating. But many people who saw only the movies -- without having read the books -- reported not feeling anything. He didn't seem like an important character in the movies.

Do you agree or disagree? And what do you think the movies could have done differently to give Sirius more ambience?

It seems to be trending here lately, but what's the URL for it?

"But surely if the boy had destroyed any of his Horcruxes, he, Lord Voldemort, would have known, would have felt it? He, the greatest wizard of them all, he, the most powerful, he, the killer of Dumbledore and of how many other worthless, nameless men: how could Lord Voldemort not have known, if he, himself, most important and precious, had been attacked, mutilated?"

This is such a cleverly-crafted paragraph. It perfectly balances two extreme opposite propositions: Voldemort's ultra-inflated ego and immortality, and at the same time the harsh underlying reality of his vulnerability and mortality.

Sort of like the movie "Memento." Your character suffers from short-term memory loss, so you don't know what came before and need to work your way backwards.

Or you're born with a rare condition where you live in reverse time? While everyone else moves forward, you move backward. So instead of multiple endings to the story, there are multiple beginnings. ⏳