I’ve been on MetroPCS for most of a decade and have no complaints. Two lines, unlimited everything, $50/month.

If you’re going to ask a question to everyone and also answer it, the best practice is to put your own answer as a comment, rather than in the textbox.

To answer the question:

True, there’s been trouble and trickery, sir
Trembling and tribulations
Twitches from switches of hickory, sir
You, sir, and your usurpations
But my patience wears very thin
When you play the violin

from “When You Play the Violin” by the Gothic Archies. It’s not emotionally resonant, I just love the wordplay.

For me, it always faded with time. Usually about a year and a half after my last relationship ended.

I don’t. At some point, you’ve got to prioritize.

Playing videogames, mostly, but reading fiction is another. Cleaning open-endedly while listening to music, as well. Primal screaming.

They all work pretty well as long as I pick the right kind of videogame.

Besides statutory, there are other situations where the man “can’t say no”. Power dynamics that are coercive. Intoxication. Fraud (eg. purporting to use birth control but not doing so would be a form of rape.

Being sexually aroused is not consent to sex is not consent to sex, to clarify the mechanics of it for you. And consent to sex of one kind is not consent to sex of another kind.

If margins are so thin, how do they afford all those restaurant critics?

The premillennial shakes at McDonald’s, before they made them thick.

The first thousand, formal learning. The next thousand, informal learning. The remainder, conversation or light reading in the language.

This is true for both of my non-native languages, Spanish and Latin. I never got past the formal learning stage in Japanese and without reinforcement it’s mostly slipped away.

I’ve a smattering of phrases and pleasantries in French, German, Dutch, Lakota, and some Slavic languages, but that’s just from exposure to native speakers.

We Americans tend to like authority but distrust authority figures we don’t already agree with.

looking back, it has always been some variant of “to understand and be understood by another”

Kids. I’ve known that’s what I wanted since I was eight years old.

“alter the behavior of others for one’s own perceived benefit”, yeah?

You ask the question in the hope that the answers will provide you either entertainment or edification.

I answered the question in the hope that others will give me a sense of validation for my views or, failing that, start an entertaining or edifying discussion on a topic I’m already interested in.

Because they have enough evidence to satisfy them that they should, if they’re rational; because they were taught to and never questioned it through self-examination, if they’re not.

Note that evidence is not the same as proof; other users have pointed out examples of evidence such as ‘testimony from trusted authorities such as parents’ and ‘personal spiritual experiences’ and since those answers were very detailed I won’t repeat them here.

That all communication is an attempt to manipulate the behavior of others.

still catching up on Bridgerton, me

Because one is actual ethnic cuisine, and the other is a stereotype.

It’s on crazy sale on the Nintendo e-store right now, maybe other platforms, too.

Brown sauce is not nearly as popular as hotsauce where I am. I always have a bottle of A1 and a bottle of catsup, but I typically have a half dozen each of mustards and hotsauces.

Editing to add I always have a jar of homemade chimichurri ready to go as well.