I can’t believe anyone is still using and even defending that word as a slur in 2023. It’s been over a decade since the push to remove references to it in federal law and honestly, even 20 years ago I felt seriously uncomfortable with any use of that word in an offhand or derogatory manner, and I didn’t even know about neurodivergence then.

I feel like the culture around usernames on Reddit really enables this kind of behavior, like it’s a game to be as offensive or lewd as possible for some folks there without “technically” breaking the rules. I deleted my account back when the Apollo drama happened and I definitely don’t miss that aspect of the culture. I’m sorry you encountered resistance to bringing this up, because you are right - it is not okay and it hasn’t been okay for years. I suspect a lot of the “just get over it” is folks who wrongly feel like there is no other option but to tolerate this culture in exchange for the ability to communicate and find support online, since the power you have as a user there is pretty much limited to “I’m leaving”.

The true tragedy is when you get all the social signals and you have the thought “man I wish I could just date multiple people at the same time” and it doesn’t occur to you to try that because… ???

Now I’m old and have to work 1 1/2 full time jobs to pay my bills, so. That won’t be happening.

Lady with social anxiety here to confirm. Flirting is useless. Every time I’ve just given up and asked the dude to date after being extremely forward for a while and they’re always shocked 🤷🏼‍♀️ Once we get past that, it’s great.

We had a wood stove hooked up to our chimney. 😬

Just a thought, but for your volunteer baking, could you reduce the number of eggshells overall by partially or fully substituting the eggs with flax eggs, egg replacer, or fruit mash such as applesauce or banana? That way, you only have your home eggshells to worry about. I do a lot of vegan baking, so if this is a path you’re curious about I’m more than happy to help if you give me an idea of what you’re making :D

Regarding the nightclub … the easiest way I’ve found to sort my feelings out on this was to imagine how hard I’d cringe if this skit was in my corporate-sponsored sexual harassment training. The answer is something around the level of crawl-in-a-hole-and-die rather than endure this skit, and I’m pretty sure “Director So and So is planning a company party and suggested a strip club. How would you respond?” was an actual scenario in one of the many I’ve had to sit through.