I think this is generally true:

Many women like to womansplain about what men “really feel” or how they should feel in a given situation¹. They see all emotions and relationships as their territory by right, and just as many men “mansplain” when a woman talks about cars or reciprocal saws, a whole lot of women do that when men talk about anything related to feelings or relationship dynamics. These women are perfectly happy to gaslight you about your own reactions, emotions and preferences. They will even attempt to tell others how you “truly feel” about something that in no way matches what you’ve said or how you actually feel.

And yes, it absolutely is just as toxic when women womansplain as when a man does his version of the same.

1. Of course, this is always 100% how they’d react only.

I think age gap romantic relationships are beneficial to the vast majority of people¹, but even more than that I think age gap friendships are far more beneficial than the romantic variety. It saddens me to see so many people say it’s “creepy” that, for example, someone 38 is friends is with someone 21. That seems to be the majority view, at least in the US. Other countries don’t insist on such strict and dogmatically-enforced age segregation — and in fact find it odd how bizarrely age-segregated the US is when they visit here.

This is completely platonic I’m talking about here, by the way. (Though I think Americans place too much importance on sex and its meaning too.)

Even more than we should normalize age gap romantic entanglements, I think we should make age gap friendships almost a requirement as there is so much benefit to be had from the perspective and experience of someone who has been around the bend a few more times than you have.

Also, I liked this comment:

Why in hell do so many people think that people of varying ages are completely different species? I just truly cannot fucking understand. I have never, ever found this to be the case. Hell, at my old job I had far more in common with the interns in their 20s (when I was early- to mid-40s) than any of the people in my age range.

Guess I will keep ranting about this forever because nothing about the modern discourse matches any of my experience.

1. Yes, including women. They are not in fact fragile children.

Corporations Are Not Our Friends.

That so many people sincerely believe that a corporation is or can be their friend, or even love them, boggles my goddamn mind. The world just does not work that way. No corporation loves you. It simply cannot. As an amoral entity, it has no feelings, no loyalty and no personal attachments. It can and will throw you away like trash the moment doing that benefits it more than keeping you around.

Happens all the time. An individual person can love you. Nothing beyond that can — and certainly not a corporation.