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As long as being around drunk people doesn't annoy you, I think enough people would respect not drinking to make going out to gay bars a not terrible experience. Depends on the place, really. More clubby, popular, blasting house music gay bars are some of the drunkest most druggy places on Earth (and, not coincidentally, a ton of fun when you're in an altered state) but there are also quieter more reasonable gay bars. Honestly, in my (admittedly limited) experience lesbian-oriented bars tend not to be as nuts as bars with primarily gay men clientele.

You can at least always approach people with the confidence that you will be the best hydrated person in the room.

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Yeah I definitely have the problem of my profile being dull. Especially after browsing a bunch of profiles, I'm like, "ugh these all sound the same... as mine". BUT I'M A DULL GUY. ):

 

Well, I don't really think I am, but it's hard to sound interesting when all the shit I like is all the shit everyone likes. I wanna travel A LOT, I like going out with friends, I like staying in and relaxing, I like video games (okay that last one is probably a detriment for most people, but I can't really hide it, as I MAKE GAMES FOR A LIVING), books, movies, music, I'm actively trying to broaden my appreciation of all of these things.

 

I think the most interesting thing I have on there is just a little snippet about how I once got stuck in Seoul for a month and instead of taking advantage of it, I moped in a shitty motel for 80% of that month, wasting the opportunity. I like that story, and I like telling it, because it's real and it happened to me. But, it's also kinda boring. U:

 

BLEH.

 

Re: not drinking.

 

In my experience, it's way more annoying for the non-drinkers to be around drinkers than it is for the drinkers to be around non-drinkers. I personally don't give a fuck, but I also know I become belligerently HAPPY and ARM OVER THE SHOULDERY when I'm drunk, and the day after I'm like, "god I'm the worst what a weirdo". The other drinkers don't care, obviously, but for the sober people...? It's possible I'm too self-conscious about it (retroactively). But I've heard similar things from both sides of the fence more than enough to convince me I'm not!

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Because I have something of an addictive personality, I decided to never ever try drinking, smoking, or using drugs. Thus far the results have been pretty good, but I want to start going to gay bars in the future and I feel like I'll get laughed at if I ask for chocolate milk.

 

(I also try to avoid juice and soft drinks because they're super bad for you, so it's pretty much just water and milk for me)

 

Bah, lies by the over zealous diet industry! The same industry that will feed you low carb, high meat diets and then not care as you die of a heat attack. As someone who loves reading actual medical research, I'd worry more about eating red meat, or just a lot of calories ALTOGETHER (it honestly doesn't matter much where they come from), than going by all those fad things. Try a Jones soda once in a while if you can find one, the Berry Lemonade stuff is delicious! Or something like Kombutcha if you can ever afford it (that stuff can get expensive!) But low sugar great tasting soda is basically what it is.

 

Also, I hang around a bunch of people that love to drink, one of my best friends drinks all the time just after work or even sometimes during work (he's the assistant manager, and the regional manager is often the one buying the beer). But I don't get judged or anything for mostly keeping away from it.

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Certainly the temptation to drink is always higher in social situations so I get how Tegan could feel pressured, and that sort of stuff has always been worse for me in a new social environments. 

 

It took me 17 years to come to my current position towards alcohol and I'm still unsure about whether I'm doing the right thing. In the end I decided that I have to be very careful around it, not because it effects me badly but because it doesn't. This makes it dangerously easy to drink more than I should. It doesn't matter that I don't get hangovers if I'm pickling my liver because of how much I drink.

 

In the end I've found it easiest to just take that temptation off the table. I leave my credit card at home, and take just enough cash for a few drinks (& a taxi home if needed).

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Dull OK Cupid profiles belong to dull people.  Don't message them!

Yeah, I didn't mean to be down on the site; it's fantastic.

I think I need to move away from Nottingham. I've been told before that this town sucks for single people once they're far enough past student age, and it's starting to feel that way. It's a university town, and people seem to study here then move away, or settle pretty quickly.

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I don't drink either, but I've hung around with drunk friends that turned into really mellow, fun people. But, no, apart from a wine here and there, I have zero interest in alcohol. As for sweet drinks, I generally avoid them (milk and water for me too), but I will occasionally drink cola if I feel like it.

In everything, it's not bad to sin now and again :) Just take all in moderation and you'll be fine. Also, if you're concerned about foodstuffs, just look at ingredients for the additives and make an effort to eat only things that sound like they might actually be food. I mean, 80% of the goods in supermarkets is concocted from stuff I would barely consider food. Most kinds of dessert, almost all candy and cookies; they're Frankenstein mishmashes of artificial sugar (high fructose corn syrup), partially hardened fat (transfat) and dozens of other additives. Fun fact: a lot of products deliberately extract valuable fibres to enhance shelf life, thus further decreasing nutrional value.

It's not 'diet propaganda' to make an effort to eat natural: fruit, vegetables, nuts, bread, milk/yoghurt and moderate amounts of fish or meat replacement products constitute a very healthy and balanced, regular diet. And again, don't worry about eating M&M's or chocolate or 7-up or a tub of ice cream or alcohol once in a while, that will not have adverse effects. Food doesn't work in direct, immediate ways; it's a holistic thing that pushes you towards a state of health/wellbeing over many decades. But in that, it is worth making an effort to eat well, and you'll also feel better on a day to day basis.

Sorry for ranting!

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I'd rather live shorter but happier than longer and constraint. I don't think there's a think like unhealthy food, but there is an unhealthy attitude towards eating. It's eating too much that you should take care off. It's not bad to not finish your plate, unlike what your parents told you. When you had enough, simply stop eating. Also, eat slow, not fast. It takes a while for your brain to get the signal that you ate stuff. Limiting access to food also works. Never have food within reach when you sit behind a desk or something. Buy a huge house so that you have to walk a lot to reach the kitchen, and install a food force field that will prevent you from taking too much food out of the kitchen.

Of course it doesn't help that all food is tasty ;)

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Don't move to London Nach! That's the devil's territory.

 

Logically, that's probably the only place for you in your chosen line of work though. I made a pact with myself years ago to never move to London, as I was at university in Reading and that was 'the thing to do' once you graduated. I never had the urge, as visiting the place always made me feel filthy, blowing horrible black shit out of my nose for days and this horrible film sticking to your skin - am willing to admit this may have been down to the areas that my friends lived in, being poor ex-students. I did end up living in London for 10 months recently, but that was with a cracking salary, so I could go where I wanted and do what I wanted whenever, with a flat in Angel. Moving there with no money can be a miserable experience.

 

That said, I couldn't be bothered to go out all the time, but I enjoyed the weekends there going to all the museums and the odd show down the west end. My housemate had some kind of Tate Modern membership, so we (the g/f and I) got into loads of stuff there on the cheap using his card.

 

I did notice that I became a wanker in crowds more or less immediately, with no patience at all with people dicking around being slow on pavements: to the extent where one guy, walking backwards towards me while chatting to a girl crossing the street nearly walked into me. Instead of me moving, I gave him a double-handed shove out of the way.

 

Now back in the provinces, in the countryside, I have returned to my polite ways :)

 

Regarding boozing - some much in this country seemed angled towards getting lashed on fridays. Of course, I used to do this but grew out of it in my late twenties, particularly the busy bars with loud crap music where you're all sandwiched in 'having a good time'. I still get lashed (though nowhere near as often or as bad as my body is getting old! :)), but in much more pleasant surroundings. Am more acutely conscious of the way booze inflicts harm on my body too.

 

In short though, you should be able to feel comfortable in not ordering alcohol in a bar if you don't want to. Stick to your guns :)

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I'd rather live shorter but happier than longer and constraint. I don't think there's a think like unhealthy food, but there is an unhealthy attitude towards eating.

 

Elmuerte, what a terribly negative view you have on self-constraint. It's a preposterous assumption that when you apply constraint and censorship on yourself and your behavior, you are automatically 'unhappier' than a person who indulges in his every whim. In fact, I would say the opposite is true. The more you make an effort to carefully determine who you want to be, the more specific you will be as a person (less lead by impulses and external forces). There's a huge amount of self-worth and strength to be found in self-control and moderation, more so than ever in a society in which we have the freedom to do and eat whatever we want.

There is also the science that says that people who eat healthy / in moderation are generally of a happier state of mind than someone who eats poorly and has no discipline in the matter.

Blargh, this is all way too black-and-white, and the odds are you're not half as bad as I make you out to be now, but you shouldn't post populistic nonsense like this :) The rest of what you said, about eating slowly, is totally true.

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I genuinely find that I am far unhappier with myself when indulging than when sticking to some rough form of healthy-ish eating plan. Ill be walking home, grab a kebab, and instantly regret it.

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Erm. You misunderstood/I wasn't clear enough. I don't have a negative view on self-constraint, in fact, the latter part of my post is pretty much all about self-constraint. I have a negative view on forced constraints, like crash diets, or avoiding social activities (e.g. not going to a bar with your friends because you don't drink alcohol). So, constraints are good if they don't make you unhappy, or something like that. "I'm not going to eat birthday cake because I'm on a diet" is not something I see as self-control, because it's your diet that controls you. "I'll take a small piece of birthday cake, because I had a smaller lunch" is self-control.

And "unhealthy attitude towards eating" is on both sides of the scale (pun intended).

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That indeed changes the whole context of your post! DUDE.

 

In other news, I really enjoyed the crowning festivities of our new king, today. Call me a romantic, but I think our monarchy is pretty great. King Willem-Alexander, I can dig it.

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Erm. You misunderstood/I wasn't clear enough. I don't have a negative view on self-constraint, in fact, the latter part of my post is pretty much all about self-constraint. I have a negative view on forced constraints, like crash diets, or avoiding social activities (e.g. not going to a bar with your friends because you don't drink alcohol). So, constraints are good if they don't make you unhappy, or something like that. "I'm not going to eat birthday cake because I'm on a diet" is not something I see as self-control, because it's your diet that controls you. "I'll take a small piece of birthday cake, because I had a smaller lunch" is self-control.

And "unhealthy attitude towards eating" is on both sides of the scale (pun intended).

 

Yes! Worry about eating too much rather than what you eat, it's an amazing thing to watch people eat a ton of food and then claim it's "healthy" because they skipped dessert. The food pyramid, the traditional view of what you "should" be eating, doesn't actually have a lot bearing. As long you get your protien, vitamins, etc. and from food, not pills (all that stuff ends up being soluable in fat and etc. and thus more likely to be absorbed with food than pissed out in concentrated form) then it doesn't matter as much what you eat beyond that as long as its not too much. Too many calories from a handful of nuts or even a salad is just as bad, and just as likely to make you fat and give you diabetes, as too many calories from a pepsi.

 

Brush your teeth, watch how much you eat in total, get what you need, and eating a bunch of cookies is going to end up the same as eating a plate of pasta in health terms. Even though you've been told by Sesame Street that cookies are a "sometimes food" since you were a kid, if you look at the constituents of what you're actually getting (calories, fat, vitamins, etc.) an omelette is not actually any better for you than a piece of cake, its societies perceptions towards the two that have skewed most people's views.

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So last June I decided to try going vegan. I cut out all animal products and processed foods and switched to only eating whole plant based foods. After a couple weeks I noticed huge improvements in how I generally felt, both mentally and physically. I continued on and by October I had lost 40 pounds and had hit what is supposedly my ideal BMI, despite the fact that I was eating a ton, was constantly full, and did zero exercise. The changes were so positive for me that I decided to make the change permanent and it has definitely had a profound impact on my life. I used to have a negative view on the whole 'eating healthy' thing but after trying it myself I can vouch that eating really healthy does produce tangible benefits.

 

And please internet people, don't judge me too harshly. I actually have to keep this a secret from most people I know because for some reason people get really offended when you tell them you don't eat animal products. I actually had someone harass me for how ridiculous he thought it was that I stopped eating junk food.

 

Re: drinking. I do like to enjoy a few Coronas every couple weeks but after my early 20s I got tired of the whole waking up feeling like shit thing so I cut back on that quite a bit. My one guilty pleasure besides video games: weed.

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I wonder if a lot of the popularity of diets comes because they simply give people structure to build a routine around, and that people have success because it's often easier to follow a set of arbitrary rules than to control your own desires. I think certainly some of the limitations I've put upon myself when drinking fall into this category.

 

 

I think in the end most people understand a balanced diet with reasonable portions is good for them, but that most people struggle to keep to it. Something that I don't think is helped by takeaways and ready meals, which often bulk up their size to give the impression of value.

 

The other observation I have is that making time to cook for myself and to make proper meals from scratch has helped me a lot with eating healthily, because actually seeing all the ingredients in a bowl instead of a list of things on a packet is something I process mentally a lot better. Which in Zeus's defence is something vegan diets tend to be quite good at, because they normally emphasise fresh goods, and preparing meals yourself.

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Frenetic Pony, I dispute that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you limit the amount you eat. There are huge nutritional differences between various foods. One protein isn't the other! Foodstuffs have real, actual effects on your body, look no further than the experience Zeus had. Beyond the notion that I don't even want to know how much salad you would have to eat to get to the calories of a Pepsi, that's not the only thing in play. A salad usually consists of relatively unrefined foods directly from nature. A Pepsi is a highly refined product bursting with sugar and salt, things that should be taken in moderation.

 

As a rule, food that comes from nature (whole foods) are very balanced in nutrition and thousands of years of evolution have primed us to consume those properly. Processed foods (foodstuffs taken apart and combined to form new things with a new, often highly distorted composition) don't have that balance. They are too sugary, too salty, lack fibres, are pumped up with additives to improve shelf life, color, smell, taste, to keep the texture right, etc. It makes a difference what you eat, as much as the amount you eat.

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I actually had someone harass me for how ridiculous he thought it was that I stopped eating junk food.

 

People are such assholes about things other people don't eat and drink :(

 

I think I must be quite lucky, because I have a fairly large group of friends who are variously vegan, vegetarian, pescertarian and fully carnivorous, and we can all have a meal without anyone hassling anyone else. There was one time someone argued vegetarian meat substitutes were fundamentally dishonest or something, but that quickly got shut down with "Because sausage and burger shapes are how the meat comes off the animal, right?"

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I think the Forks Over Knives documentary does an excellent job really putting the food we eat into perspective. There are some amazing studies and revelations in that movie and I highly recommend it. The China study in particular blew my mind and made me really re-evaluate my perspective on that. But enough of me sounding preachy, to each his own.

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People are such assholes about things other people don't eat and drink :(

 

I think I must be quite lucky, because I have a fairly large group of friends who are variously vegan, vegetarian, pescertarian and fully carnivorous, and we can all have a meal without anyone hassling anyone else. There was one time someone argued vegetarian meat substitutes were fundamentally dishonest or something, but that quickly got shut down with "Because sausage and burger shapes are how the meat comes off the animal, right?"

 

...or perhaps just British. Having travelled all over Europe and further afield with a vegetarian friend, the choice available to veggie (and other dietary choices) is pretty thin anywhere but here. This might might be changing slowly, but was certainly true a few years ago to my experiences.

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I worked on a meat counter once. You are not truly a man until you have separated the vertebra of a lamb with a cleaver

 

its a very satisfying feeling :)

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As a vegetarian in the Netherlands, Englands is pretty much the only other country I've been to that offers a comparable variety of options when eating out.

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You should go to India, it's extremely vegetarian friendly. But that's probably because about half of the people is vegetarian.

 

German suck with beef. There's hardly any of it, it's mostly pork. Delicious pork, but still mostly pork.

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Austin is my favorite US city to be vegan in.

 

Also, holy moly Tegan, heartbreaking, but heartening in your handling of it. Be careful tying something like your educational future to somebody that might use that dependence against you. Also, being 10 years into a kind of bummer print design job, my advice is to focus on motion graphics, interactive (tablet/mobile), and 3D, but architectural/object, and post effect 3D, not characters walking 3D.

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I feel like I need to write something here the next time I get drunk, but I usually watch or play something and go to bed when I come home drunk.

 

Look at you guys, you interesting drunks you.

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