u/Fancy-Animal7704

I just finished watching season 1 last night. Above all else, I'm really sad that David Miller lost (because I guess we all call him David Miller, not just David....??). Looking up where all of the top 5 ended up after that season ended, all except one of them went on to have successful careers as chefs. David was, sadly, the only one who didn't... He went back to his software engineering career and stuck with that.

If he had actually won, he almost certainly would have made food his career instead. He clearly has the talent for it. What sticks out to me was how he amazed those three world-class food critics, scoring an 11.5/12 from them, where the next closest was only an 8/12.

I admit I was SUPER weirded out by him at the start. But homestly he seemed a lot more normal than what was constantly said about him. Confident, overconfident, sure, but clearly he wasn't off-putting about it like Sharone was. The fact that Sheetal could not STAND Sharone, but she would rub David's shoulder and get excited for him when he won, kinda tells you something about the difference between confidence and arrogance (and Sharone was VERY arrogant).

It's a bummer, man! I hope David doesn't have any regrets.

He seems like he has the potential to be THE absolute biggest dick IRL lol. Gordon is at least a lot sweeter at the core but just externally abrasive. But Joe seems like he's on a life quest to see if he really can murder someone just by staring at them.

However I admit I could be completely wrong about him and maybe he feeds starving children for breakfast every day or something. IDK lol. There's just something pernicious about him and it terrifies me lol

There are still a number of people who don't seem to understand this. They take it upon themselves to tell you how you need to be doing X Y and Z, and when you don't respond with "oh, you know, that's great advice, thank you so much!!", they act like you're such an ungrateful POS, just throwing away this beautiful gift of telling you stuff you might have never needed to hear ever or even want to hear. Like, bitch, get off your high horse. ​

This was decades ago at this point, but it is something I dwell on from time to time. One of the worst weeks of my life, a week where I was teased and bullied relentlessly, was my week camping out with 9 other kids at Bible camp. That was really the beginning of the end of my faith, as I spent a lot of time in the aftermath of that wondering why, when I was off doing something that a god would certainly have thought was good of me to do, I instead experienced some of the worst times of my youth under what had to be the watchful eye of this god. I am at this camp singing songs about how great God and Jesus are, all while being treated like absolute shit by their followers? Why would that happen?

EDIT: since multiple people have taken this angle, I need to address something: *I have fully processed these events.* I learned what I needed to learn, grew how I needed to grow, and these are now emotionally inert issues for me. I am only bringing them up because I am curious how those who still identify as Christian would explain these. Please do NOT apologize on behalf of anyone; I do not need or want any "I'm sorry"s here or any psychoanalysis of me. I only want to hear your answer to the question. If you still know that you can't help but comment on me as a person in your reply somehow then I'm going to respectfully ask you to sit this one out and move on to the next post in this sub. I want to keep the focus on the question.

There is, of course, plenty of joy, fulfillment, and value one can find by choosing to remain single and living as our most authentic selves. But even more than all that, I find this life tremendously peaceful. And for those of us whose life was once characterized by chaos and turmoil, peace is invaluable.

I grew up in a home where, to massively oversimplify things, I was not safe, and even when things were calm, I certainly never felt safe. I still remember, after finally leaving that home, the feeling of turning the key to my dorm room, one I shared with someone else, yes, but it was still a space I chose for myself and distanced me from my toxic family, and that felt *so good*. To find something of my own, for me, was the single most important step in my development as a person.

I have wasted so much time and energy on dating. The number of times I tweaked my dating profiles, had my lady friends look over my profile for review, agonized over how to send messages that were somehow charming and sweet and funny and alluring without seeming like I was trying too hard...

Last year I was dating a woman where everything was going great, where she was having a great time (she told me this herself) on a lot of the stuff we did and she had many complimentary things to say about me, but then we kissed, and as she would eventually tell me, she just didn't feel anything. And poof, that was it. That's what dating is in the modern world now: you can do 99 things right, but screw up the 100th, and that's it for you.

Ever since then, I decided I'd try to just stop playing this game. Oh, am I supposed to put all my time and energy into fixing my relationship status? I'm supposed to devote what precious little time I have on this earth swiping on apps and starting conversations that will go nowhere? I'm even supposed to keep my eyes open at places like *the fucking grocery store* where I REALLY just want to get my list of things and get back to my comfortable, cozy home? I can't just be friends with my lady friends, all of whom are super important to me and whose presence in my life I do not want to complicate and mess up? I'm supposed to be ogling women at my choir instead of simply participating in this choir because I want to, because the experience of singing music about peace and love with others is so good for my soul? You're telling me I ought to set that aside and instead focus on which of these women I'd like to fuck? How have we normalized this shit in society? (a few weeks ago, my aunt even asked me if I had the hots for so-and-so in my choir, a woman who is, not even exaggerating, young enough to be my daughter. Even my AUNT is pushing gross ideas like these)

One of my most important revelations in all of this was when I was thinking about how I would sometimes think, oh I really admire that woman for her career and ambition, or I admire that woman for their taste, or their sense of humor, etc and thus wouldn't it be so great to be their partner and bring those things into my life... But then I realized, I *myself* could be those things. I could be the one with the cool career, the good taste, the sense of humor. Why do I need to just date someone else with those qualities to bring them into my life when I am a fully capable person in my own right, fully able to be these things myself? We are all complete individuals as we are, and we are all capable of becoming that which we find to be good and fulfilling in this world.

Being able to live life as WE choose, not having to struggle against the conflicting wishes and desires of another partner, not being brought down by anyone else's toxic energy... Just peace. It feels fantastic.

Anyway, just my two cents on being single and happy. Thanks for being the lovely and supportive community that you are. :)

Mathematically, the conclusions here ought to be clear... If the p-value is above or below a given threshold, sure, that tells you whether statistical significance is found.

But there are many other considerations. What if bias was present and the results aren't trustworthy? Do we then get to say, well, we should carry on with our default assumption that there's a difference?

Let me give you an example. Let's say a company says their robot lawnmower finishes mowing an average lawn in 10 minutes whereas every other robot lawnmower on the market takes 25, and it's up to ME to say that this company's mowing time is NOT better ttan everyone else. I run a test, I find no difference, BUT, someone finds bias in my experiment, and that invalidates it, so the company president says, well then, since you have failed to demonstrate the validity of your angle, I carry forth considering it true that my robot lawnmower is the best until you *prove me wrong!*

Is this hypothetical person able to do this?

His joke:

>Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

>He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

>He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

>Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

The point being: if you're missing just one part of the build you are going for, you will be totally fucked. If you have the right trinkets, a good complementary hero power, and most of the minions, but that one pesky T5 minion just will NOT show up, you're fucked.

My elderly father is visiting for a few weeks. I have two brothers with houses and families while I just have a condo, but I do have a guest room for my father. And since my brothers are so busy and have dedicated all the space they have to their kids, they haven't stepped up hardly at all to host my dad and I am left having a roommate for weeks.

I mean it when I say that it's the part about sharing a space with a romantic partner that really kills my interest in romance altogether. I barely even like having social plans with my friends, lol, and I often only go out of some sense that people think it is good for a person to get out there and be social. Having to give up my space, my freedom, my independence is incredibly stressful for me. But since I'm single and live alone, people get this idea that it is a far smaller intrusion overall to stay in my space than it would most other places. This is nowhere close to true. It will probably take me weeks to fully decompress from this experience.

I watched this movie recently called Hush, where a woman lived in this house alone in the woods. And even though this was a horror movie and the setup depended on her isolation out in the woods, I still have been thinking about her living situation SO MUCH and how jealous I am of it, lol. Because wow does that ever seem like a great life to me: middle of nowhere, maybe a neighbor or two, nobody having any real interest in coming to visit, just complete peace, complete control over the environment, free of stress, intrusion, or any obligation to give any attention to anyone else for any reason. I have zero interest in entertaining anyone and never have wanted to do so.

Part of this almost certainly comes from me growing up in a stressful and difficult household where my mother was emotionally and mentally abusive. When I finally moved out and found a living environment that was SAFE, it was such a game-changer for me that it really became my foundation of healing and all the good things life has to offer. I finally came to know a peace I never even knew existed; I previously thought life was just a series of stressful and difficult experiences to be endured. Any time I have to share my space with someone, I immediately return to that mentality.

This whole experience of hosting my father for weeks has been so hard on me that I think of blowing up my life completely and moving to some remote place where it isn't feasible to find me. I've had a headache for about a week now and I don't expect it to dissipate until he leaves at the very earliest. This has probably been the most difficult thing I've had to deal with in years lol. I've even thought about taking on a girlfriend, even though I'm not sure I really want that, but it would at least blow up the dynamic that someone can step into my space. When it is "our" space instead, then it is understood that it's probably not cool to stay with us for weeks on end. But, of course, then I'm sharing my space with a partner, so I'm still losing my space either way, lol...

I wish I wasn't like this, to be honest. I wish I was like the others, that I could have been fine surrendering my space, and in that case I probably would have proposed to one of my previous girlfriends and started a family. But that's just not what I wanted and it isn't what feels good to me. Independence, space, freedom: these are the real keys to my happiness. I hear my brother talk about how he might get a night once or twice a month with no kids, and I wonder how he hasn't ended up with 12 heart attacks / strokes as a result, lol. Because that's where I'd be at this point if I got *that little* space for myself.

Sorry if this is kind of an aimless rant, lol. Really just need to get shit off my chest. It's the kind of time in my life where I am RELIEVED to go to work, because then at least I can get alone time in my office...

I know how to deselect it / turn it off, but my choice is not saving and is reset as soon as I log. I don't know why this is set as a default and turning itself back on repeatedly, but it's annoying for sure.

Any way to fix this / keep the plates permanently disabled?