u/Gvendoga

(Booted out from r/notinteresting for reddit meta)

Stumbled across this curious pargraph on wikipedia (link)

• The handicap principle states that a male who survives despite possessing some sort of handicap thus proves that the rest of his genes are "good alleles". If males with "bad alleles" could not survive the handicap, females may evolve to choose males with this sort of handicap; the trait is acting as a hard-to-fake signal of fitness.

While it talks specifically about genetic handicap, i feel like it otherwise lines up painfully closely with how women react when you point out systematic discrimination against men in schools/academia/job hiring. They subconsciously think men that struggle at education or employment for ANY reason (whether genuine mental retardation or preferential treatment of other demographic groups) don't deserve to receive institutionalized assistance because it would give them an "unfair" (from their POV) opportunity to ascend the socioeconomic ladder and god forbid, potentially spread his subpar genes.

This is also why it's seen as reasonable in job hiring to always pick a woman over a man when their merits are otherwise identical. Because it's not enough to be as good as the woman and you have to be better than her to prove yourself worthy (hypergamy says hello). But you also shouldn't receive any uplifting along the way and should even expect to deliberately be given a disadvantageous footing.

I turned 18 last month and i had to get rescued to Armenia from russian military service. My dad is also staying because of the looming threat of mass mobilization this autumn, but he is divorcing my mom cuz they both "lost the romantic spark" so there's no chance we will all stay together even if she moves to Armenia with us.

Now, my dad is a workaholic and has a Protestant-like work ethic. He just has that internal drive to do things even in dire situations that i never did. In fact i've been the exact opposite of him for as long as i remember myself, but it wasn't too much of a problem, in fact i was planning on staying a NEET for the rest of my life... That is until monke chimped out at Ukraine and started sacrificing his own citizens and strangling our civil liberties.

I can already feel my dad growing resentful over my apathy and indifference to the future having spent just a week alone with me (he used to be away from home at work trips all the time, so he rarely ever got to see the full extent of my proclivities). He's been nagging me to get a job at KFC (which by the way requires you to agree to work for at least 6 months after training period), but the thought of having no say in when you wake up and what you do throughout the day without even the ability to bail out is MORTIFYING... And all of that just for a measly equivalent of 280$/month(!).

I am NOT built for this. Waking me up for school was always an uphill task even during my prime, when my mental health was arguably in the best shape it ever was. I think getting consistently woken up by anything else than your natural rhythm is literally a violation of your body, but even more than that, your soul. My dad calls it a discipline but i call it bullshit. There cannot be discipline without proper motivation. I used to hop on Counter Strike every other week to claim my weekly slop drop because i BOTH had a motivation (save up to buy a game) AND had fun in the process. And no, i don't think starving or being resented for perceived laziness is a good enough motivator to work, especially when the future doesn't hold much else.

And i'm sure most other people aren't built for this either - you can tell by how many of them (including my dad) are permanently on SSRI's that sedate them into the Compliant&Content Employim Mode, and i obviously want to avoid going down this road, whatever positive tradeoffs it can yield, because let's call a spade a spade - this is basically sacrificing your soul, not even selling.

I just know for a fact that if i refuse to seek employment, he will keep growing increasingly frustrated and resentful with my ass and i will have to survive through a palpable tension between us every day - i know how it feels to talk to your mom a day after the school principal called her about you again.

So here's what i've come up with:
He's departing back to russia for a few weeks to resolve the unfinished business he has. I cannot afford to do an hero for that duration, because he and mom will grow increasingly worried that i stopped picking up the phone and dad will ultimately have to interrupt from whatever errand he was running and go back to Armenia. I CANNOT risk him staying in russia for any longer than neccessary and risk getting drafted by Pvt. Conscriptovich & Co.

So i will soften the edges somewhat and promise to get a job after he gets back. And then do a leap of faith just before he returns.

I feel really guilty that he's spent so much planning and effort to get me to safety, all for me to render it pointless. But i can't just get a job. Not a fucking fast-paced fast-food chain job where i will spend 7 hours in a russian speaking environment, which will contribute to an already ongoing process of me forgetting english (the main catalyst is stress from moving and less time to spend watching videos in english).

I'm really really scared of forgetting english. For me it would be like forgetting a native language in a way. English has allowed me to meet so many cool people online and enabled me to truly indulge in escapism beyond just the scope of the russian net - and therefore unconstrained by the post-soviet flavor that reminded me where i live.