Example of a nanny resume profile
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2019.09.10 13:14 nixioduda GRAMBADDIES
For Baddies from IG. Post should include the IG username between ( & ). Like: "Her Name (@username)" in the title.
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2024.06.01 16:12 Future_Adagio2052 Gordon vs Isaac Clarke: why it is actually AWESOME!
 | submitted by Future_Adagio2052 to DeathBattleMatchups [link] [comments] you may have seen or heard about this before but let me tell you why its awesome! SECTION 1: CONNECTIONS (this was made by u/Nevin3Tears who made the connections so all due credit goes to him) Full Connections List: Both are badass, alien-killing science fiction protagonists who were originally every-men forced into situations that were out of their control (Black Mesa Incident and Ishimura Outbreak respectively). They were both from games that were heavily innovative for their respective genre. Half-Life was the first FPS game to build an immersive setting rather than just be a shooting gallery like it's predecessors (Doom and Quake), Dead Space pushed for procedural enemy placement and the removal of a HUD in contrast to it's predecessors. (Resident Evil) Both worked for scientifically revolutionary corporations who studied alien technology (Black Mesa studied Xen and the Concordance Extraction Corporation studied the 3A Marker) that were sabotaged from within by enigmatic groups (The G-Man's employers and Unitologists) that manipulated the head of the facility where the incident occurred (Administrator Wallace Breen of Black Mesa and Captain Benjamin Mathius of the USG Ishimura) to go forward with the plans of said groups. Both companies had dissenters who realized the danger of the what the company was doing early on (Eli Vance and Terrence Kyne), both had previous relationships with the saboteurs (The G-Man and Eli Vance spoke immediately before the incident occurred, Terrence Kyne worked with Challus Mercer reluctantly before the outbreak occurred), and both work with the protagonists to fix the mistakes they indirectly caused and are killed in the process (Eli is killed by an Advisor in Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Terrence Kyne is killed by Kendra Daniels in Dead Space 1) Both are highly intelligent in their respective field (Gordon Freeman is a Theoretical Physicist who graduated from MIT with a PhD in said field, Isaac Clarke graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering with an unknown Alumni). Despite this, however, they're both overqualified for the positions they're in (Gordon Freeman is reduced to pushing buttons and pushing a cart into a port, Isaac is reduced to hacking doors and producing damage reports). They are betrayed by female members of their team who are double agents of an enemy faction within the game (Judith Mossman is a double agent for the Combine, Kendra Daniels is a double agent for EarthGov). However, both of these women had ultimately noble goals that makes the player sympathize with them (Mossman was working with the Combine to ensure Eli's safety, Daniels worked with EarthGov to ensure that the Marker would be kept secure and contained from Unitologists). Both were considered high-priority targets for a military coverup operation (The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit of the USMC considered Freeman their #1 target for the vast majority of the Black Mesa Incident due to killing huge swathes of their troops, The EarthGov security force also considered Clarke an extremely high-priority target due to his objective of destroying the Marker which was considered threatening by director Tiedemann). However, against all odds, they manage to overcome this despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, eventually forcing both groups into retreat and disarray. After making their way into the alien-world where their respective incidents originated (Xen and Aegis IIV), they end up stopping the situation by destroying the being that led the invasion in the first place (The Nihilanth led the assault on Earth by commanding the Xenian military force (Vortigaunts, Alien Grunts, etc.) throughout the Incident, The Hivemind on Aegis IIV commanded the Necromorph horde during their assault on the USG Ishimura). After these beings were defeated, the entire invasion force fell apart (literally in the Necromorph's case) as no reinforcements could be delivered. After the end of their first game, both are placed into long periods of stasis against their will (The G-Man recruited Gordon for his employers due to his aptitude during the incident, Isaac was caught stranded in Space and was forcibly placed in stasis for 3 years due to his growing instability). After being awakened, both find themselves in large, futuristic cities (City 17 and Titan Station) governed by tyrannical rulers (Wallace Breen and Hans Tiedemann). Both end up ultimately killing these said tyrants at the end of their second game, unintentionally destroying their cities as well (The death of Hans Tiedemann ultimately resulted in the complete destruction of Titan Station, The death of Wallace Breen resulted in the destruction of City 17 due to the citadel core imploding). Around the start of their second game, both of them meet likable female characters who eventually become their closest companion throughout the rest of the series (Alyx Vance and Ellie Langford are both considered the deuratagonists of their respective series). Both are haunted by enigmatic reminders of their decisions throughout their second games (The G-Man is constantly watching Gordon throughout the entirety of Half-Life 2, appearing in locations that are impossible for the player to reach conventionally. He serves as a reminder of Gordon's decision to accept his offer at the end of the first game. On the other hand, Isaac is consistently haunted by Nicole's hallucination throughout the entire game, serving as a reminder of his decision to blame Nicole for the death of his parents), however, both eventually break free of this by the start of the next game (The Vortigaunts cut off Gordon's link to the G-Man at the start of HL2: Episode One, and Isaac destroying the Marker at the end of Dead Space 2 ends his hallucinations of Nicole). Both of their most iconic weapons were not originally designed for combat in the slightest (The Crowbar is a simple repair tool, the Plasma Cutter is a basic mining tool), however, they became combat-efficient due to the innovative thinking of their wielders. Both have Gravity-manipulation tools that were originally designed for heavy lifting (The Gravity Gun and Kinesis) but became combat-efficient, again, due to to the intuition and creative thinking of their wearers. Both of them received critically acclaimed remakes in the past few years that are often cited among the best remakes ever made (Black Mesa was released in 2020, Dead Space was released in 2023). Both of them have an infamous history with the number 3. Dead Space 3 is a mess that killed the franchise until the remake came out, and Half-Life 3 is one of the most hyped up and memed games of all time because of how many people want it. Basically, EA can count to 3, but they can't pronounce it right, Valve can't count to 3 at all. SECTION 2: fight potential So now the connections are done we get to the next section which is the fight potential and dynamic which is what i’ll be explaining Both gordon and isaac obviously have guns to use against each other but we need to go more in depth For starters why would both fight each other? well it's pretty simple in the events of dead space 2 isaac suffered from hallucinations from the events of the first game and with gordon being silent it's easy to assume isaac would deem him a threat and try to attack him The fight could start with both of them using their simpler weapons such as gordons mp7 and isaacs plasma cutter as the battle would be each of them trying to reach each other and you could easily have both of them use there other weapons for gordon you could have him use the crossbow and for isaac you could have him use the pulse rifle and before any of them reaches the other they get knocked out as we get to the next escalation The next stage of the fight can be them waking up as they are overrun by either necromorphs or headcrab zombies as they stop fighting each other and fight the hoard which the commissioned track by brandon yates shows as a general idea around 2:05 https://youtu.be/DX48ImC1lXY?si=jJaI8j6tl7rgGuXO You can have both use there more closer ranged guns such as the SPAS-12 for gordon and the handheld ore cutter line gun for isaac as they kill the undead horde you can even have a scene where one of them runs out of ammo and the other person throws one at them. Eventually after the battle is over both turn the guns on each other as they resume the gun fight with both using their more explosive weapons such as the rpg and supercollider contact beam until they get sucked out of space. With this you could have a reference to the zero g sections in dead space where both of them are fighting in space maybe have isaac try to strangle gordon but he retaliates by using his crowbar against him which leads them to land on a station Which leads to the final stage where with both of them exhausted and out of options they start using their biggest weapons……..gravity! Both start using the area around them with gordon using his gravity gun and isaac his kinesis as they throw projectiles at the other person gravely injuring each other in the process as they find the final projectile each uses there weapon however a tug of war ensures as they try desperately to hold on against the other. There are 2 ways this ends either 1 gordon wins the tug of war as he launches it against isaac impaling him as he looks up at gordon who beats him with a crowbar ie hunt down the freeman style while if isaac wins he launches the kinesis at gordon impaling him as he looks up at isaac who stomps on him ie what he does in the games I hope this short visualisation helps show how their arsenals can bounce off of each other and better yet you even have more shit both can use against the other that i didn't such as isaacs stasis and gordons tau cannon. SECTION 3: DEBATE Surprisingly this matchup is very debatable with both having advantages and disadvantages against the other such as gordon having the advantage of having multiple ways to bypass isaacs armour and being able to hard counter with his gravity gun however he has less diversity in terms of abilities and is far weaker and less durable than isaac and isaac having the advantage of having a bigger and more versatile arsenal then gordon and being much stronger and more durable in general compared to him however he is less skilled and agile compared to gordon and gordon's HEV suits shield has the better defensive options Like before i hope this short description helped give you the idea on the debate and if you want to know more then i would heavily suggest checking out this blog which describes it in much better detail than i could https://www.reddit.com/DeathBattleMatchups/comments/1czug0g4_death_battle_fan_blogspredictions_gordon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button SECTION 4: MUSIC POTENTIAL While both half life and dead space are different in terms of music you still have ways to make the music potential work as shown with these 2 here https://youtu.be/z3qEUkrJ6lE?si=rBlqoay7YX7zHVdo https://youtu.be/Nz6_Zprm9AI?si=zVXvEtn1WW-3D58d Having the music start with a slow atmospheric beginning reminisce of the dead space games https://youtu.be/Q2suSUMgROY?si=nHMo4zmg0Wwo5LHd but as it goes on it slowly turns to a more action heavy soundtrack akin to the half life https://youtu.be/7eXuoJD0cTc?si=R1YMMoRmgkovOc-F An even better example is the commissioned track made by Brandon himself! https://youtu.be/DX48ImC1lXY?si=QKnAY4XF4X5fHYJV The track starts off slow but more tension builds up as it goes on until in 2:05 where it becomes action heavy until it goes goes back to the tension before hand as it builds up with big thuds until the final thud where the track ends As said before hand i hope i helped explain how both dead space and half life music can work for a good escalation of a track and please do check out marked for life and give it a listen SECTION 5: INTERACTION POTENTIAL Now this is sort of a weakness of the matchup as Gordon doesn't talk however there are ways to make this work through other methods Such as using Gordon's facial expressions to visualise what he feels/says without saying a word as his actions speak louder than his words both in the story and in the game. you can easily make this work with his models and especially his newer one from half life alyx With Isaac he does talk however you can also use body language to also visualise what he feels/says without saying a word this should be very easy to do and you can also use facial expressions thanks to his newer model from the dead space 1 remake! So overall while interaction potential is a bit iffy you can certainly make it work through other methods which wouldn't be out of character for either to use SECTION 6: CLOSING/FINAL THOUGHTS For a legacy match up that's over 10 years old (no seriously the matchups first ever mention was all the way back in fucking 2012 https://www.reddit.com/DeathBattleMatchups/comments/1c2oljw/the_first_ever_mention_of_gordon_freeman_vs_isaac/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button like goddamn) It actually holds up surprisingly well with good connections and fight dynamic to back it up showing how it managed to hold the test of time To sum up what I said, the connections show the similarities of both characters as ordinary men thrusted into terrifying situations which changed them both. a fight dynamic showing how both of them can bounce off of each other. A debate showing both of their advantages and disadvantages and the win cons. The music potential of both series and how it can mix well together. And finally interaction potential which while a weak point is definitely salvageable and can work if we use other methods. So overall I wanted to continue and finish this post since I really like this match up and I think it deserves more love and again HUGE thank you to Nevin who wrote the connections for this mu and allowed me to make the rest of it and anyways thank you for anyone who read to this point and hopefully it will become an amazing episode.....if that ever comes out that is. |
2024.06.01 16:07 mansplanar 7 Expert Profile Tips For Hinge [Get More Messages & Dates!]
Hinge has positioned itself as a long-term relationship app, so that means your profile needs to convince her you’re true Boyfriend Material!
Sound like a tall order? Don't worry. We use Hinge on a daily basis, and have been since the app launched in 2012. You're about to benefit from our thousands of hours of direct user experience!
You see, we represent our clients on Hinge - optimizing their profiles, selecting their photo lineups, and sending messages on their behalf. We analyze everything, so we know what approaches work, what to avoid, and which strategies attract the best matches.
Thanks to our evidence-based approached, these 7 Hinge profile tips for men will make your profile irresistible! You’ll also get 11 examples of the best Hinge answers.
Let’s start with the main attraction…
Hinge Profile Tip #1: Aim For Perfection With Your Primary Photo
Don’t worry - it’s easier than it sounds! A team of European neuroscientists identified a checklist of what attributes combine to make the most attractive profile picture:
Eye contact is particularly important, as lack of it has a negative effect on her first impression of you. When she can look you straight in the eyes, you seem inherently more trustworthy and genuinely likeable.
That means sunglasses are not ideal for dating photos, and you don’t want to hide your eyes behind your hair or a Snapchat filter either.
Hinge Profile Tip #2: Embrace Quality Control
You know who gets excited about low-quality graphics? No one.
So when choosing your other 5 Hinge photos or videos, make sure they’re all high-quality images. You want your Hinge lineup to look intentional and curated, not like you pulled random images off your Facebook or phone.
Here’s the thing - when looking at images, human brains are wired to prefer simplicity and clarity.
When a picture has a high cognitive workload, it means your brain has to work harder to interpret what’s going on in the frame. The subject matter becomes less attractive the more complex it is.
Simple = attractive.
If your picture is blurry, has harsh highlights and dark shadows, or “artistic” effects that obscure your face, the odds she’s going to “like” or comment on it are drastically reduced - and that means you probably won’t match with her.
While artistic effects that complicate your photos are not good, using a black and white filter can increase the odds you’ll get some “likes” - by 106%. Try applying one to a photo or two in your lineup!
Hinge Profile Tip #3: Put Down The Selfie Stick
Selfies are problematic on Hinge for several reasons:
Photos where you’re doing something are especially effective on Hinge, as it makes it easy for your match to start a conversation by asking about whatever is going on in the image.
Per their internal data, sports photos are the most popular when it comes to “likes,” and activity photos in general ranked highly.
Coming in dead last were pics where you’re posing with someone who could be an ex. A full 98% of singles said that was a turn off.
Hinge Profile Tip #4: Stay On The Bright Side
Now let’s talk about your profile text. The best Hinge prompts to answer let you highlight on an attractive trait or two in a positive way.
Remember, she’s looking for Boyfriend Material, so why waste space with negativity?
Take, for instance, the “Pet Peeves” prompt. It’s challenging to make your answer sound anything other than whiny, pessimistic, and overly bothered by the minutiae of daily life.
Plus, if it’s a shared pet peeve, chances are she’ll feel a flash of annoyance when she reads it - and guess who she’s going to associate that feeling with? (Spoiler alert: you).
You also want to avoid describing what she may perceive as a negative character trait or flaw:
With over 80 prompts to choose from and only 3 available slots, she’s going to wonder why you took up valuable space with what’s essentially a reason not to “like” you.
To decide which are the best Hinge profile questions for you to answer, take a minute and write down a list of things you bring to the table that you think your ideal woman would be looking for in a guy.
Stable career, physically fit, interesting hobbies, family oriented, able to afford vacations, responsible enough to care for a dog… things of that nature that illustrate why you’d be a particularly good catch.
Then compare that list to the available prompts, and choose the ones that best let you highlight a few of those traits. Simple!
Here are 4 great Hinge profile examples, plus insight into why they work:
If you’re still stuck on what to write in your Hinge profile, try using one of these creative Hinge answers that are general enough to fit anyone:
A blast-from-the-past fashion trend makes for a great conversation starter since most women can relate to it.
While these examples don’t necessarily highlight a desirable personality trait or hobby, they will bring a smile to her face.
Humor is a great strategy in a dating profile, if you can pull it off. Women can’t help but be drawn to funny guys - it’s the way her brain is wired.
Hinge Profile Tip #5: Make One Of The Prompts About Her
Marketing yourself in an appealing, intriguing way is the goal of your Hinge profile.
But including a tidbit about her is an effective strategy.
According to research, 70% of your dating profile should describe you, but 30% of it should describe what type of person you’re looking for. That’s the most attractive combination.
As you’ve already learned, keep your answer positive.
Describing what you don’t want could have the opposite effect, as you may end up sounding picky and judgemental. Or worse, bitter from your last relationship imploding.
Hinge don'ts
Instead, focus on hobbies you’d like to have in common with your perfect match, or attributes that are important to you in a relationship.
Here are 3 great ways to answer the Hinge profile questions:
Describing non-physical attributes implies you're looking for a non-superficial relationship, and mentioning a hobby you'd like to have in common gives her some insight into your personality.
These good prompt answers give her some insight into what dating you might be like, and also imply that keeping in shape is important to you (which is always an attractive quality).
Mentioning a great first date idea in your Hinge answer is a subtle way to make her envision what an hour or two with you might include.
In fact, it’s so effective that according to founder Justin McCleod, answering this prompt got the most dates for users in London:
What works in London will probably work wherever you are as well, making “I know the best spot in town for” one of the best Hinge prompts for guys to answer if it's one of the available options for you.
Hinge Profile Tip #6: Make Every Word Count
The shorter a dating app profile is, the more impact each individual word has. To create the best possible first impression, you want every word in your profile to evoke positive vibes.
Stay away from words that cause a strong negative reaction, like violence, swearing, drugs and weapons. Those can have a ripple effect that will diminish your overall attractiveness.
And since this is Hinge, not Tinder, you’ll definitely want to keep it classy.
don't do this on Hinge
Even if you’re on Hinge just to hook up, don’t advertise your intentions in your profile. And consider switching to another dating app - Hinge really isn’t the app for that.
Here a few more Hinge “Don’ts” to keep in mind:
Repeat yourself. She’s reading a max of 450 characters, which is even less than a Tinder bio. Repetition is really going to stand out. If you talk about how much you love hiking in every Hinge answer, she’s apt to think you’re a one note kind of guy.
Make grammapunctuation/spelling errors. There’s not a lot of written material feeding into that all-important first impression, so little mistakes can have a big effect. Plus, surveyed singles said bad sex was preferable to bad grammar (if they had to choose), so it’s important to get it right.
Give “non” answers. You may think it’s the height of wit to answer Hinge prompts with statements like “I’m looking for… a better answer to this question,” but that’s likely to backfire on you. If she thinks you’re not taking online dating seriously, she probably won’t invest any time in getting to know you.
Reference past relationships. If you’re in your late 20s or 30s, odds are high you’ve got at least one significant relationship in your past. Whether the breakup was good or bad, your Hinge profile is not the place to rehash it.
Hinge Profile Tip #7: Reconsider Your “Dealbreakers”
When you set up your Hinge profile, you have the option to designate match preferences as “dealbreakers.”
That's a great feature for singles seeking long-term relationships, as it eliminates the need to ask those personal questions during the first few dates.
When you specify something as a dealbreaker, you won’t see profiles of people who don’t fit that category, regardless of how many other categories they do fit. (If you don't specify something as a dealbreaker, you may see profiles of singles who fall slightly outside of your ideal preferences.)
Free members have the usual filters like age range, distance and height. If you’re a Hinge+ or HingeX member, you have access to additional filters like children, family plans, education, and politics.
Take a look at any categories you deemed a “Dealbreaker” and make sure they truly are.
For instance, if your match is 5’7” instead of 5’8” or taller, is that truly important in the grand scheme of things? Or if she’s 41 instead of under 40?
If you’re too exclusive with your filtering, you may miss out on a great match you would have really clicked with, despite a small divergence from your “ideal type.”
submitted by mansplanar to MatchMeBro [link] [comments]
Sound like a tall order? Don't worry. We use Hinge on a daily basis, and have been since the app launched in 2012. You're about to benefit from our thousands of hours of direct user experience!
You see, we represent our clients on Hinge - optimizing their profiles, selecting their photo lineups, and sending messages on their behalf. We analyze everything, so we know what approaches work, what to avoid, and which strategies attract the best matches.
Thanks to our evidence-based approached, these 7 Hinge profile tips for men will make your profile irresistible! You’ll also get 11 examples of the best Hinge answers.
Let’s start with the main attraction…
Hinge Profile Tip #1: Aim For Perfection With Your Primary Photo
Don’t worry - it’s easier than it sounds! A team of European neuroscientists identified a checklist of what attributes combine to make the most attractive profile picture:
Eye contact is particularly important, as lack of it has a negative effect on her first impression of you. When she can look you straight in the eyes, you seem inherently more trustworthy and genuinely likeable.
That means sunglasses are not ideal for dating photos, and you don’t want to hide your eyes behind your hair or a Snapchat filter either.
Hinge Profile Tip #2: Embrace Quality Control
You know who gets excited about low-quality graphics? No one.
So when choosing your other 5 Hinge photos or videos, make sure they’re all high-quality images. You want your Hinge lineup to look intentional and curated, not like you pulled random images off your Facebook or phone.
Here’s the thing - when looking at images, human brains are wired to prefer simplicity and clarity.
When a picture has a high cognitive workload, it means your brain has to work harder to interpret what’s going on in the frame. The subject matter becomes less attractive the more complex it is.
Simple = attractive.
If your picture is blurry, has harsh highlights and dark shadows, or “artistic” effects that obscure your face, the odds she’s going to “like” or comment on it are drastically reduced - and that means you probably won’t match with her.
While artistic effects that complicate your photos are not good, using a black and white filter can increase the odds you’ll get some “likes” - by 106%. Try applying one to a photo or two in your lineup!
Hinge Profile Tip #3: Put Down The Selfie Stick
Selfies are problematic on Hinge for several reasons:
1. Selfies are a whopping 40% less likely to get “likes.” That number rockets up to 90% if it’s a bathroom selfie. Don’t go there.
2. Selfies are less attractive than non-selfies. A recent study compared two photos - a selfie, and a photo of that same person taken by someone else. The selfie version was perceived as less attractive and more narcissistic. Don’t cultivate that vibe on Hinge!
3. They don’t inspire comments. Which photo do you think will entice more comments and “likes”:
Dalmatians for the win!Photos where you’re doing something are especially effective on Hinge, as it makes it easy for your match to start a conversation by asking about whatever is going on in the image.
Per their internal data, sports photos are the most popular when it comes to “likes,” and activity photos in general ranked highly.
Coming in dead last were pics where you’re posing with someone who could be an ex. A full 98% of singles said that was a turn off.
Hinge Profile Tip #4: Stay On The Bright Side
Now let’s talk about your profile text. The best Hinge prompts to answer let you highlight on an attractive trait or two in a positive way.
Remember, she’s looking for Boyfriend Material, so why waste space with negativity?
Take, for instance, the “Pet Peeves” prompt. It’s challenging to make your answer sound anything other than whiny, pessimistic, and overly bothered by the minutiae of daily life.
Plus, if it’s a shared pet peeve, chances are she’ll feel a flash of annoyance when she reads it - and guess who she’s going to associate that feeling with? (Spoiler alert: you).
You also want to avoid describing what she may perceive as a negative character trait or flaw:
With over 80 prompts to choose from and only 3 available slots, she’s going to wonder why you took up valuable space with what’s essentially a reason not to “like” you.
To decide which are the best Hinge profile questions for you to answer, take a minute and write down a list of things you bring to the table that you think your ideal woman would be looking for in a guy.
Stable career, physically fit, interesting hobbies, family oriented, able to afford vacations, responsible enough to care for a dog… things of that nature that illustrate why you’d be a particularly good catch.
Then compare that list to the available prompts, and choose the ones that best let you highlight a few of those traits. Simple!
Here are 4 great Hinge profile examples, plus insight into why they work:
If you’re still stuck on what to write in your Hinge profile, try using one of these creative Hinge answers that are general enough to fit anyone:
A blast-from-the-past fashion trend makes for a great conversation starter since most women can relate to it.
While these examples don’t necessarily highlight a desirable personality trait or hobby, they will bring a smile to her face.
Humor is a great strategy in a dating profile, if you can pull it off. Women can’t help but be drawn to funny guys - it’s the way her brain is wired.
Hinge Profile Tip #5: Make One Of The Prompts About Her
Marketing yourself in an appealing, intriguing way is the goal of your Hinge profile.
But including a tidbit about her is an effective strategy.
According to research, 70% of your dating profile should describe you, but 30% of it should describe what type of person you’re looking for. That’s the most attractive combination.
As you’ve already learned, keep your answer positive.
Describing what you don’t want could have the opposite effect, as you may end up sounding picky and judgemental. Or worse, bitter from your last relationship imploding.
Hinge don'ts
Instead, focus on hobbies you’d like to have in common with your perfect match, or attributes that are important to you in a relationship.
Here are 3 great ways to answer the Hinge profile questions:
Describing non-physical attributes implies you're looking for a non-superficial relationship, and mentioning a hobby you'd like to have in common gives her some insight into your personality.
These good prompt answers give her some insight into what dating you might be like, and also imply that keeping in shape is important to you (which is always an attractive quality).
Mentioning a great first date idea in your Hinge answer is a subtle way to make her envision what an hour or two with you might include.
In fact, it’s so effective that according to founder Justin McCleod, answering this prompt got the most dates for users in London:
What works in London will probably work wherever you are as well, making “I know the best spot in town for” one of the best Hinge prompts for guys to answer if it's one of the available options for you.
Hinge Profile Tip #6: Make Every Word Count
The shorter a dating app profile is, the more impact each individual word has. To create the best possible first impression, you want every word in your profile to evoke positive vibes.
Stay away from words that cause a strong negative reaction, like violence, swearing, drugs and weapons. Those can have a ripple effect that will diminish your overall attractiveness.
And since this is Hinge, not Tinder, you’ll definitely want to keep it classy.
don't do this on Hinge
Even if you’re on Hinge just to hook up, don’t advertise your intentions in your profile. And consider switching to another dating app - Hinge really isn’t the app for that.
Here a few more Hinge “Don’ts” to keep in mind:
Repeat yourself. She’s reading a max of 450 characters, which is even less than a Tinder bio. Repetition is really going to stand out. If you talk about how much you love hiking in every Hinge answer, she’s apt to think you’re a one note kind of guy.
Make grammapunctuation/spelling errors. There’s not a lot of written material feeding into that all-important first impression, so little mistakes can have a big effect. Plus, surveyed singles said bad sex was preferable to bad grammar (if they had to choose), so it’s important to get it right.
Give “non” answers. You may think it’s the height of wit to answer Hinge prompts with statements like “I’m looking for… a better answer to this question,” but that’s likely to backfire on you. If she thinks you’re not taking online dating seriously, she probably won’t invest any time in getting to know you.
Reference past relationships. If you’re in your late 20s or 30s, odds are high you’ve got at least one significant relationship in your past. Whether the breakup was good or bad, your Hinge profile is not the place to rehash it.
Hinge Profile Tip #7: Reconsider Your “Dealbreakers”
When you set up your Hinge profile, you have the option to designate match preferences as “dealbreakers.”
That's a great feature for singles seeking long-term relationships, as it eliminates the need to ask those personal questions during the first few dates.
When you specify something as a dealbreaker, you won’t see profiles of people who don’t fit that category, regardless of how many other categories they do fit. (If you don't specify something as a dealbreaker, you may see profiles of singles who fall slightly outside of your ideal preferences.)
Free members have the usual filters like age range, distance and height. If you’re a Hinge+ or HingeX member, you have access to additional filters like children, family plans, education, and politics.
Take a look at any categories you deemed a “Dealbreaker” and make sure they truly are.
For instance, if your match is 5’7” instead of 5’8” or taller, is that truly important in the grand scheme of things? Or if she’s 41 instead of under 40?
If you’re too exclusive with your filtering, you may miss out on a great match you would have really clicked with, despite a small divergence from your “ideal type.”
2024.06.01 16:03 joshfym FPS Drops + Low Res (PC)
After installing and playing Ghost of Tsushima, I noticed in occasional cutscenes that the resolution and fps drop dramatically, causing the game to go from a consistent 1440p 130fps, to 35fps and terrible quality. Keep in mind, this has only occurred in very few cutscenes, but still gives you the urge to snap your keyboard in half.
Although, as soon as that specific cutscene is over and the game resumes, the FPS and Resolution return back to normal. An example of when it occurred was near the start of the game, when Jin Sakai was riding his horse through the flowers. At first, I thought it was a temporary issue at the beginning of the game, until it just kept happening over and over again.
Some individuals online have stated it is an issue with FSR Frame Generation, which I do have switched on. I have yet to see if that’s causing the issue, because someone stated you would have to start a new game if you proceed with disabling FSR Frame Generation. (Sounds likes bullshit but I don’t want to take the risk until further notice).
If anyone has the solution to solving this issue, or are experiencing it themselves, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)
submitted by joshfym to ghostoftsushima [link] [comments]
Although, as soon as that specific cutscene is over and the game resumes, the FPS and Resolution return back to normal. An example of when it occurred was near the start of the game, when Jin Sakai was riding his horse through the flowers. At first, I thought it was a temporary issue at the beginning of the game, until it just kept happening over and over again.
Some individuals online have stated it is an issue with FSR Frame Generation, which I do have switched on. I have yet to see if that’s causing the issue, because someone stated you would have to start a new game if you proceed with disabling FSR Frame Generation. (Sounds likes bullshit but I don’t want to take the risk until further notice).
If anyone has the solution to solving this issue, or are experiencing it themselves, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)
2024.06.01 16:03 Shorjey Would you say you are a very sensitive person? (Mentally/Emotionally)
I’ve been having SD for about 11 years, and I’ve come to this conclusion that a psychological element is playing a very important role in my problem.
I’ve tried for many years to figure out what this element exactly is, in the beginning I thought it must be stress, but then I figured out that I should be more precise, “stress” is a very general term and doesn’t give directions on what I should fix exactly.
And I think I’ve finally figured it out, it’s being too sensitive. I get irritated very easily, I get upset very easily, for example if i text someone and they don’t answer after a few hours i might completely block them! If there is something very slightly wrong with some thing that I own I seriously consider getting rid of it and buying a new one, even though I don’t really need to, and most people don’t see what i see wrong. And I’ve noticed the same thing about other SD sufferers that i know, for example there’s this telegram group for SD sufferers, and one time I started checking their profile pics, and I noticed how all of the members have very “neat” profile pics, like they all work for Apple design team or something.
This guy has noticed the same thing I suggest you watch this video it’s very interesting(look for YouTube channel “decent propaganda” , he has a video titled as “strange similarities between people with SD”, I tried to put the link but automod removes my post)
Whenever I am very screwed and have no energy to be sensitive my SD also disappears, for example when I’m very sick because of flu or food poisoning.
I feel like my immune system is just like me personally, it’s too sensitive, for example a tiny dust sits on my face and my brain says “regenerate the whole skin” .
submitted by Shorjey to SebDerm [link] [comments]
I’ve tried for many years to figure out what this element exactly is, in the beginning I thought it must be stress, but then I figured out that I should be more precise, “stress” is a very general term and doesn’t give directions on what I should fix exactly.
And I think I’ve finally figured it out, it’s being too sensitive. I get irritated very easily, I get upset very easily, for example if i text someone and they don’t answer after a few hours i might completely block them! If there is something very slightly wrong with some thing that I own I seriously consider getting rid of it and buying a new one, even though I don’t really need to, and most people don’t see what i see wrong. And I’ve noticed the same thing about other SD sufferers that i know, for example there’s this telegram group for SD sufferers, and one time I started checking their profile pics, and I noticed how all of the members have very “neat” profile pics, like they all work for Apple design team or something.
This guy has noticed the same thing I suggest you watch this video it’s very interesting(look for YouTube channel “decent propaganda” , he has a video titled as “strange similarities between people with SD”, I tried to put the link but automod removes my post)
Whenever I am very screwed and have no energy to be sensitive my SD also disappears, for example when I’m very sick because of flu or food poisoning.
I feel like my immune system is just like me personally, it’s too sensitive, for example a tiny dust sits on my face and my brain says “regenerate the whole skin” .
2024.06.01 16:02 Kt33333na My take on Workin’ Moms in its entirety
Man…. Jenny was so hard to like, through every single season. That’s my kind way of putting it lol. I hate that I am saying this, but I am happy how the writers left us a tiny bit of hope for her (even if it felt like an afterthought…). It took five/six whole years for her to evolve, to realize that being good is more fulfilling than being a brat. I’m glad that she gave Gina that introduction to the headmaster at the school. Small, yet huge step for Jenny. I think that Jenny watching Gina turn into that mom that she never got to be (and Gina calling her terrible), despite being in a mom group, made Jenny realize that she actually really fricken sucked.
Side note for Jenny’s storyline: I HATE that Ian got written off. I would have loved to see his storyline play out, but I understand the writers POV, it’s Workin’ MOMS, a show about women, even if the women are or act icky at some points in time. This is a woman-forward show so I think that’s why the storyline got shifted back to Jenny. His story was still cool.
Kate was my favorite of all time, through every season. Personally, I couldn’t have done what she did, with her trials and tribulations, but she did ALL THE THINGS!! A lot of people talked about Charlie and Ella being “ignored” in the last two seasons, did we really care about watching her juggle play dates and childcare?? Personally I didn’t, it was more entertaining watching Kate juggle being a successful PR professional, going through an altering chapter in her marriage (Nathan and mean nanny), finding out she was pregnant with Ella AFTER finding out she had premature menopause, and wait, accepting a teenage stepchild into her life, AND starting and becoming successful in her own agency??! Badass.
I wish Frankie wasn’t written off the show. She was an amazing example of what a mid-life crisis looks like. I also feel like her problems got overshadowed by the problems of the other original main characters. She was the eclectic one of the group, so it probably would have helped viewers that did not relate to the other characters feel validated with their feelings and life events. This also could have been a great opportunity to open a discussion about mental health, in a serious manor, which we saw when she went to the rehab/mental health center, but I feel like it was more about sex than addressing the issues she was facing that caused her divorce.
Anne… Alice was a trip. I also know what it’s like to be a teenage girl. I think Anne’s character and her entire storyline was meant to teach us what generational trauma looks like, even if it’s not seen as abuse. At the end, when Seamus tells Anne, “you know, she’s got a good thing going,” (Anne devoutly caring about her daughter), it helped her finally forgive her own maternal relationship and let Alice go. Idk. Still trying to figure Anne out. Our girl needs a therapist lol!!
Sloan: mixed feelings. I wish we got to see flashbacks from her experience of becoming a mother to her “niece” (??). I do, however, love her evolution in the short period of time she was on the show. I absolutely love that she let her guard down with her s/o, but it would have been interesting seeing her manage life as a single mother who chose a different path in becoming a mother.
OVERALL: this is definitely going to be a show that is going to be in my “comfort show” rotation. Not every season was meant to be dramatic. This show, to me, was a wonderful and realistic homage to womanhood, and all of the annoying, gruesome, stupid, yet calm, growing and happy moments that happen in between. 12/10!
submitted by Kt33333na to Workinmoms [link] [comments]
Side note for Jenny’s storyline: I HATE that Ian got written off. I would have loved to see his storyline play out, but I understand the writers POV, it’s Workin’ MOMS, a show about women, even if the women are or act icky at some points in time. This is a woman-forward show so I think that’s why the storyline got shifted back to Jenny. His story was still cool.
Kate was my favorite of all time, through every season. Personally, I couldn’t have done what she did, with her trials and tribulations, but she did ALL THE THINGS!! A lot of people talked about Charlie and Ella being “ignored” in the last two seasons, did we really care about watching her juggle play dates and childcare?? Personally I didn’t, it was more entertaining watching Kate juggle being a successful PR professional, going through an altering chapter in her marriage (Nathan and mean nanny), finding out she was pregnant with Ella AFTER finding out she had premature menopause, and wait, accepting a teenage stepchild into her life, AND starting and becoming successful in her own agency??! Badass.
I wish Frankie wasn’t written off the show. She was an amazing example of what a mid-life crisis looks like. I also feel like her problems got overshadowed by the problems of the other original main characters. She was the eclectic one of the group, so it probably would have helped viewers that did not relate to the other characters feel validated with their feelings and life events. This also could have been a great opportunity to open a discussion about mental health, in a serious manor, which we saw when she went to the rehab/mental health center, but I feel like it was more about sex than addressing the issues she was facing that caused her divorce.
Anne… Alice was a trip. I also know what it’s like to be a teenage girl. I think Anne’s character and her entire storyline was meant to teach us what generational trauma looks like, even if it’s not seen as abuse. At the end, when Seamus tells Anne, “you know, she’s got a good thing going,” (Anne devoutly caring about her daughter), it helped her finally forgive her own maternal relationship and let Alice go. Idk. Still trying to figure Anne out. Our girl needs a therapist lol!!
Sloan: mixed feelings. I wish we got to see flashbacks from her experience of becoming a mother to her “niece” (??). I do, however, love her evolution in the short period of time she was on the show. I absolutely love that she let her guard down with her s/o, but it would have been interesting seeing her manage life as a single mother who chose a different path in becoming a mother.
OVERALL: this is definitely going to be a show that is going to be in my “comfort show” rotation. Not every season was meant to be dramatic. This show, to me, was a wonderful and realistic homage to womanhood, and all of the annoying, gruesome, stupid, yet calm, growing and happy moments that happen in between. 12/10!
2024.06.01 15:51 Any_Conference550 3 weeks off for self improvement.
Later this month, I’ll have 3 weeks off, and I want to use that time wisely to dive deep into self-improvement. I’ve started drafting a schedule and would love any tips or advice you might have. Here’s my plan so far:
submitted by Any_Conference550 to selfimprovement [link] [comments]
- Career Development (2-3 days)
• Resume and LinkedIn Revamp: Spend a couple of days updating my resume and optimizing my LinkedIn profile. • Career Planning: Define short-term and long-term career goals, research potential paths, and develop a strategy. • Worst-Case Scenario Preparation: Create a contingency plan in case of job loss, identify networking opportunities, and list companies of interest. - Home Life Improvement (2-3 days) • Decluttering and Organizing: Spend a few days methodically decluttering and organizing each part of my house to create a calm and comfortable environment. • Home Improvement Projects: Identify and complete small projects to enhance my living space.
- Mental Health Improvement (2-3 days) • Journaling and Reflection: Dedicate time to journaling and reflecting on my thoughts and emotions. • Mindfulness Practices: Incorporate mindfulness techniques like meditation or yoga. • Mental Health Strategies: Plan how to integrate these practices into my daily routine.
- Future Planning with Family • Long-Term Goals: Discuss and define long-term goals with my husband. • Current Living Situation: Evaluate if we are happy with where we live and discuss potential future moves. • Family Action Plan: Create a plan to achieve our desired future, including financial planning and lifestyle changes.
- Physical Health Improvement • Daily Exercise Routine: Incorporate a consistent exercise regimen. • Healthy Meals: Plan and prepare meals. • Medical Check-ups: Schedule regular medical appointments.
- Skill Development • Identify a Skill: Choose a skill to learn or improve. • Daily Practice: Dedicate time each day to practice or take an online course. • Track Progress: Set milestones and track my progress.
- Social Connections • Reconnect: Reach out to friends and family I haven’t spoken to in a while. • Plan activities or gatherings.
2024.06.01 15:50 rheannahh Therapist falsified information in clinical documentation after destroying the last of my sanity (long)
I had an abusive therapist in 2021 whom I recently, and so kindly, made a review page for on RateMDs (Canada); turns out a lot of people feel the exact same way about her, and one person claimed they are reporting her to the ethics board due to her verbal attacks.
My next therapist in 2022 was abusive, even worst than the last. It was so bad I ended up reporting to the ethics board, and the therapist is now doing coaching for the time being. If I had recorded the sessions it would have been game over for that therapist. It killed me for a long time that I didn't record the sessions.
I later sought out a new therapist; my friend warned me that the one I chose had "crazy eyes" and it was red flags all over (based on their PP profile). I should have listened.
This new therapist, Alex, almost killed me, again. He was awful. The second I walked in the room, I warily mentioned my past experience with the abusive therapist. In response, Alex started accusing me of having "destructive" behaviours - despite that I didn't tell him anything about my behaviours yet. I hadn't told him anything at all, just that I was anxious due to a past experience. I think he has issues with younger women.
I saw Alex from August 2023 - April 2024. In this time, he was immediately convinced of his own assumptions - never asked me to explain my experiences or thoughts or anything like that - confronted me constantly for things he pulled out of thin air (he would twist anything I said and then confront me for some alleged bad behaviour or cognitive distortion), and was entirely unwilling to try a different approach despite my (at first) gentle attempts to communicate that his approach wasn't working and was making me very unwell. I can gladly provide examples but it'd end up being a long ass post if I do that, so bear with me. He couldn't handle me even trying to talk about my past therapy abuse, because it was assumed to be my fault. Any dissent was "resistance" or rigidity. He refused to do trauma work despite that being the foundational problem.
He refused to let me "free associate" (psychodynamic therapy) because he was convinced it would cause me some wild regression (as if his current approach wasn't fucking me up). That is, he refused to let me speak my mind.
There was nothing for me to work with in the therapy. It wasn't grounded in reality; it was just all about how awful I am, yet not even in a way that was tangible - he could never explain himself. I was already hanging on a thread from my past abusive therapists, and I pretty quickly developed a substance use disorder (prescription) to try to cope. Began to vape nicotine constantly to try to stabilize myself. I began to isolate myself. By December 2023 I stopped going out at all - again. You know, almost died from the therapist in 2022, my life was almost ruined, and couldn't go out at all, and there I was basically back in the same place.
I never missed a single session. I even opted to increase to twice a week session in an attempt to resolve whatever was going amiss. I continuously tried to establish a working relationship with him. My self-confidence and sense of reality and self were devastated.
Anyway, March 2024 comes around and it comes out Alex diagnosed me with BPD and that was why he was so confrontational (and frankly pulling horrible things out of thin air). Now, I'm pretty darn sure I have either schizotypal or a psychotic disorder. I was under the impression he was treating me for this, as he himself said he dx'd me with schizotypal. But I was also very confused because being confrontational with the kinds of populations I fit into is exactly not what you're supposed to do and has been proven to fuck them up. It's one of the reasons I stayed so long; I just dissociated into oblivion. Not to mention the CPTSD.
I end up sending Alex an email detailing my experiences, which was hard to do. He never asked me about my experiences before (it was all about his assumptions of me), and I thought I needed to try to put an end to this, to again try to establish a working relationship.
The next session, Alex immediately begins to apologize, tells me how he misdiagnosed me, that he's been treating me for a Cluster B disorder when he should have been treating me for a Cluster A, that the "treatment" not working wasn't my fault. He also was convinced that this is what went wrong in my past therapies; that they misdiagnosed me with BPD when the issue was schizotypal, and that it just so happens that applying the confrontational treatment for BPD to schizotypal can basically end the schizotype. (TBH he was way too generous to these past therapists; all him saying that proved to me was that he never believed me in the first place.) He told me he "failed me" and that I "humbled him." He was almost crying he seemed so sorry.
I was already looking for a new therapist, but I was grateful that at least it seemed like things were set straight with Alex. I mean, I now had a substance use disorder and all the more therapy trauma, but I'm pretty happy with little. It was mutually agreed upon that the termination was due to the ways in which the misdiagnosis made the treatment inhospitable for me. It was ended amicably but I noticed he began to act weird around me, very distant, etc. I didn't think much of it, figured maybe he was more emotionally involved when he thought I had BPD for whatever reason.
Found a new therapist at the beginning of April - a formally trained, internationally-based psychoanalyst out of all things (was getting desperate) - and things are going well, finally. No therapy abuse; no issues that even closely resemble the issues I've had with the abusive therapists, etc. Things are finally "easy" with a therapist; the sailing is as smooth as it can be. Also it's entirely free association and it hasn't caused me any issues, contrary to Alex's conviction that letting me speak freely would be devestating to my wellbeing.
Well, two days ago I contacted Alex as I wanted to go to a boutique treatment centre for my prescription substance use issue and they were requesting recent past therapist notes. I thought what a better option than to have Alex send his notes with an explanation that he misdiagnosed me, that he thinks I have been misdiagnosed continuously in past therapies and that's why I've been "treatment resistant," and so on and so forth. Also, given that I developed the issue because of the stress from Alex, this way my story would be corroborated.
Alex was adamant sending his notes was a bad idea, and that the ethics board actually recommends that psychologists write summary letters of the treatment instead. I thought that was nice that Alex was looking out for me. I explained to Alex what I'm looking for in the letter (with the central focus being on the misdiagnosis issue), and that my main goal is to help prove my eligibility for the program (they only take "highly motivated" clients; it's more relaxed in terms of restrictions and what not). I agreed to pay Alex around $400 for his time. I really thought Alex and I were making further amends and that it was so nice he could have my back on this.
Alex gets back to me with the worst letter imaginable. All about how the treatment failed because of ME, how we never made any progress because of ME, that the "lack of consensus on treatment goals and methods" was a massive barrier, and that this all happened despite that the frequency was increased to twice a week (which he failed to mentioned only occurred because I requested it, in an effort to save the therapy!). He made no mention of the fact that I never missed a single therapy session or any fact that would make me sound good, not to mention that he didn't even so much as touch on the fact that the therapy failed because of HIS misdiagnosis. He made it sound like the termination occurred because of how treatment resistant I was.
He also downplayed my trauma (I asked him to speak out this in the letter), saying only how I have a family history of "neglect" and being "scapegoated." My mother would scream at me, like to the point her lungs were going to burst, as a small child until I blacked out, this continued up until I was kicked out at 18, and I have serious CPTSD. I was even diagnosed with PTSD at one point. Like? Alex is supposed to be a specialist in trauma.
So I read the letter and was confused. Got back to him assuring that I'd still pay him, but suggested maybe he remove some parts of it if he can't revise them. Told him I disagree with the reasons for termination and why the treatment didn't work out, and reminded him of the fact he misdiagnosed me. I was honestly very confused and thought maybe he forgot. Told him it's probably not helpful to minimize my trauma.
Cue a minute after I send that email, and it suddenly dawns on me. The pathetic excuse of a therapist never recorded his fuck up in my clinical file. He obviously maintained his delusional narrative within his notes, presumably to cover his ass in case I reported him or sued him for malpractice (unlikely anyway), given that his misshapen and misapplied "treatment" caused me a ton of harm due to his incompetence.
I was seeing red and sent him another email informing him that I actually recorded our final sessions in light of what happened with my previous therapist (and Alex knew about my regret of not recording those sessions, and I'd often leave my phone out during our sessions). It's one-party consent in Canada, and Alex at the very beginning told me he was fine if I recorded the sessions anyway. So yeah, I emailed Alex whilst appalled telling him all about how I recorded him stating he misdiagnosed me, was treating me for the wrong disorder, that therapy not working wasn't my fault, and so on.
Told him he can either write me a letter based on facts - facts I can corroborate given my session recordings - or I'm not paying him for shit. Told him to not even bother replying if he isn't willing to write me a letter grounded in reality. Shockingly, he never got back to me.
And now he'll never know if I was bluffing and he gets to spend the next few months in terror that I'm going to use session recordings to report him for knowingly putting false information in clinical documentation.
What the hell. He could have at least TRIED to make me sound decent in the letter given that he knew what he was saying was bullshit. I guess dissonance is a real bitch. I also don't for a second buy that if I had BPD, his shit-tier "treatment" would have magically worked. It was gaslighting and abusive. You can't just make horrible assumptions about people or create a false reality, shove that in the person's face, then gaslight them all the more when the person is fucking confused and, eventually, distraught.
What a gaslighting loser. I should legitimately report him. Leaving him a bad review as we speak.
(I have had many legitimate delusions myself and don't find the term "delusional" as a pejorative to be offensive. LMK if I should edit it out though.)
submitted by rheannahh to therapycritical [link] [comments]
My next therapist in 2022 was abusive, even worst than the last. It was so bad I ended up reporting to the ethics board, and the therapist is now doing coaching for the time being. If I had recorded the sessions it would have been game over for that therapist. It killed me for a long time that I didn't record the sessions.
I later sought out a new therapist; my friend warned me that the one I chose had "crazy eyes" and it was red flags all over (based on their PP profile). I should have listened.
This new therapist, Alex, almost killed me, again. He was awful. The second I walked in the room, I warily mentioned my past experience with the abusive therapist. In response, Alex started accusing me of having "destructive" behaviours - despite that I didn't tell him anything about my behaviours yet. I hadn't told him anything at all, just that I was anxious due to a past experience. I think he has issues with younger women.
I saw Alex from August 2023 - April 2024. In this time, he was immediately convinced of his own assumptions - never asked me to explain my experiences or thoughts or anything like that - confronted me constantly for things he pulled out of thin air (he would twist anything I said and then confront me for some alleged bad behaviour or cognitive distortion), and was entirely unwilling to try a different approach despite my (at first) gentle attempts to communicate that his approach wasn't working and was making me very unwell. I can gladly provide examples but it'd end up being a long ass post if I do that, so bear with me. He couldn't handle me even trying to talk about my past therapy abuse, because it was assumed to be my fault. Any dissent was "resistance" or rigidity. He refused to do trauma work despite that being the foundational problem.
He refused to let me "free associate" (psychodynamic therapy) because he was convinced it would cause me some wild regression (as if his current approach wasn't fucking me up). That is, he refused to let me speak my mind.
There was nothing for me to work with in the therapy. It wasn't grounded in reality; it was just all about how awful I am, yet not even in a way that was tangible - he could never explain himself. I was already hanging on a thread from my past abusive therapists, and I pretty quickly developed a substance use disorder (prescription) to try to cope. Began to vape nicotine constantly to try to stabilize myself. I began to isolate myself. By December 2023 I stopped going out at all - again. You know, almost died from the therapist in 2022, my life was almost ruined, and couldn't go out at all, and there I was basically back in the same place.
I never missed a single session. I even opted to increase to twice a week session in an attempt to resolve whatever was going amiss. I continuously tried to establish a working relationship with him. My self-confidence and sense of reality and self were devastated.
Anyway, March 2024 comes around and it comes out Alex diagnosed me with BPD and that was why he was so confrontational (and frankly pulling horrible things out of thin air). Now, I'm pretty darn sure I have either schizotypal or a psychotic disorder. I was under the impression he was treating me for this, as he himself said he dx'd me with schizotypal. But I was also very confused because being confrontational with the kinds of populations I fit into is exactly not what you're supposed to do and has been proven to fuck them up. It's one of the reasons I stayed so long; I just dissociated into oblivion. Not to mention the CPTSD.
I end up sending Alex an email detailing my experiences, which was hard to do. He never asked me about my experiences before (it was all about his assumptions of me), and I thought I needed to try to put an end to this, to again try to establish a working relationship.
The next session, Alex immediately begins to apologize, tells me how he misdiagnosed me, that he's been treating me for a Cluster B disorder when he should have been treating me for a Cluster A, that the "treatment" not working wasn't my fault. He also was convinced that this is what went wrong in my past therapies; that they misdiagnosed me with BPD when the issue was schizotypal, and that it just so happens that applying the confrontational treatment for BPD to schizotypal can basically end the schizotype. (TBH he was way too generous to these past therapists; all him saying that proved to me was that he never believed me in the first place.) He told me he "failed me" and that I "humbled him." He was almost crying he seemed so sorry.
I was already looking for a new therapist, but I was grateful that at least it seemed like things were set straight with Alex. I mean, I now had a substance use disorder and all the more therapy trauma, but I'm pretty happy with little. It was mutually agreed upon that the termination was due to the ways in which the misdiagnosis made the treatment inhospitable for me. It was ended amicably but I noticed he began to act weird around me, very distant, etc. I didn't think much of it, figured maybe he was more emotionally involved when he thought I had BPD for whatever reason.
Found a new therapist at the beginning of April - a formally trained, internationally-based psychoanalyst out of all things (was getting desperate) - and things are going well, finally. No therapy abuse; no issues that even closely resemble the issues I've had with the abusive therapists, etc. Things are finally "easy" with a therapist; the sailing is as smooth as it can be. Also it's entirely free association and it hasn't caused me any issues, contrary to Alex's conviction that letting me speak freely would be devestating to my wellbeing.
Well, two days ago I contacted Alex as I wanted to go to a boutique treatment centre for my prescription substance use issue and they were requesting recent past therapist notes. I thought what a better option than to have Alex send his notes with an explanation that he misdiagnosed me, that he thinks I have been misdiagnosed continuously in past therapies and that's why I've been "treatment resistant," and so on and so forth. Also, given that I developed the issue because of the stress from Alex, this way my story would be corroborated.
Alex was adamant sending his notes was a bad idea, and that the ethics board actually recommends that psychologists write summary letters of the treatment instead. I thought that was nice that Alex was looking out for me. I explained to Alex what I'm looking for in the letter (with the central focus being on the misdiagnosis issue), and that my main goal is to help prove my eligibility for the program (they only take "highly motivated" clients; it's more relaxed in terms of restrictions and what not). I agreed to pay Alex around $400 for his time. I really thought Alex and I were making further amends and that it was so nice he could have my back on this.
Alex gets back to me with the worst letter imaginable. All about how the treatment failed because of ME, how we never made any progress because of ME, that the "lack of consensus on treatment goals and methods" was a massive barrier, and that this all happened despite that the frequency was increased to twice a week (which he failed to mentioned only occurred because I requested it, in an effort to save the therapy!). He made no mention of the fact that I never missed a single therapy session or any fact that would make me sound good, not to mention that he didn't even so much as touch on the fact that the therapy failed because of HIS misdiagnosis. He made it sound like the termination occurred because of how treatment resistant I was.
He also downplayed my trauma (I asked him to speak out this in the letter), saying only how I have a family history of "neglect" and being "scapegoated." My mother would scream at me, like to the point her lungs were going to burst, as a small child until I blacked out, this continued up until I was kicked out at 18, and I have serious CPTSD. I was even diagnosed with PTSD at one point. Like? Alex is supposed to be a specialist in trauma.
So I read the letter and was confused. Got back to him assuring that I'd still pay him, but suggested maybe he remove some parts of it if he can't revise them. Told him I disagree with the reasons for termination and why the treatment didn't work out, and reminded him of the fact he misdiagnosed me. I was honestly very confused and thought maybe he forgot. Told him it's probably not helpful to minimize my trauma.
Cue a minute after I send that email, and it suddenly dawns on me. The pathetic excuse of a therapist never recorded his fuck up in my clinical file. He obviously maintained his delusional narrative within his notes, presumably to cover his ass in case I reported him or sued him for malpractice (unlikely anyway), given that his misshapen and misapplied "treatment" caused me a ton of harm due to his incompetence.
I was seeing red and sent him another email informing him that I actually recorded our final sessions in light of what happened with my previous therapist (and Alex knew about my regret of not recording those sessions, and I'd often leave my phone out during our sessions). It's one-party consent in Canada, and Alex at the very beginning told me he was fine if I recorded the sessions anyway. So yeah, I emailed Alex whilst appalled telling him all about how I recorded him stating he misdiagnosed me, was treating me for the wrong disorder, that therapy not working wasn't my fault, and so on.
Told him he can either write me a letter based on facts - facts I can corroborate given my session recordings - or I'm not paying him for shit. Told him to not even bother replying if he isn't willing to write me a letter grounded in reality. Shockingly, he never got back to me.
And now he'll never know if I was bluffing and he gets to spend the next few months in terror that I'm going to use session recordings to report him for knowingly putting false information in clinical documentation.
What the hell. He could have at least TRIED to make me sound decent in the letter given that he knew what he was saying was bullshit. I guess dissonance is a real bitch. I also don't for a second buy that if I had BPD, his shit-tier "treatment" would have magically worked. It was gaslighting and abusive. You can't just make horrible assumptions about people or create a false reality, shove that in the person's face, then gaslight them all the more when the person is fucking confused and, eventually, distraught.
What a gaslighting loser. I should legitimately report him. Leaving him a bad review as we speak.
(I have had many legitimate delusions myself and don't find the term "delusional" as a pejorative to be offensive. LMK if I should edit it out though.)
2024.06.01 15:46 Yun2ka How to check testosterone consistently without always ordering test kits?
I don’t want to keep purchasing and ordering test kits over and over again.
I’m a hyper responder to changes in hormones, and want to know what environmental factors impact my testosterone levels. I obviously know the basics like, stress, sleep, exercise, diet, etc. But there seems to be a lot of variance between people on how much smaller things affect hormones. For example, for most people touching receipts and drinking milk is gonna do pretty much nothing, but some people can have noticeable changes to these smaller things. I just want to be able to test myself after trying different life choices to see what impacts me.
Is there a way to consistently test your testosterone levels, ideally your whole hormone profile without having to always purchase and order kits
Is there something I can buy one time, and test my testosterone levels multiple times? I know Migan said grip strength is a good prediction of your testosterone but I’m sure gym can interfere with its accuracy.
submitted by Yun2ka to team3dalpha [link] [comments]
I’m a hyper responder to changes in hormones, and want to know what environmental factors impact my testosterone levels. I obviously know the basics like, stress, sleep, exercise, diet, etc. But there seems to be a lot of variance between people on how much smaller things affect hormones. For example, for most people touching receipts and drinking milk is gonna do pretty much nothing, but some people can have noticeable changes to these smaller things. I just want to be able to test myself after trying different life choices to see what impacts me.
Is there a way to consistently test your testosterone levels, ideally your whole hormone profile without having to always purchase and order kits
Is there something I can buy one time, and test my testosterone levels multiple times? I know Migan said grip strength is a good prediction of your testosterone but I’m sure gym can interfere with its accuracy.
2024.06.01 15:35 mansplanar 20 Best Bumble Bio Examples, According to a Bumble Insider
Keep your bio short, sweet and lighthearted. Avoid things and statements that can be used against you. You don't need something special or extravagant and having a bio that's too long or in depth can look as too tryhard. Instead work on your pictures, because in the end those will decide if someone swipes left or right on you regardless of what they say... because only once they decided that you are cute enough they will open up your bio
Tease slightly. Be humorous. Tell them how good your life is without directly saying it. And pictures pictures pictures. Each picture needs to be high quality. Bio doesn't have the same strength as decent pictures.
Write something that tells me about you--what you like to eat, do in your free time, watch on tv, last cool place you visited or want to visit next, whatever. The worst is guys who write nothing or just their IG handle, FFS. If that's all the time and thoughtfullness you can put into a profile, I'm going to assume that's what I'll get from you in a relationship. Also, is it laziness or complete lack of self-awareness? This is why writing even a little bit about yourself can be really important in this context.
Every girl is gonna be attracted to something different and the character limit blows. Just be yourself
OK, so, you officially downloaded Bumble, picked out your best dating-app-friendly photos, and brushed up on some Bumble openers. Now, it's time to create the best Bumble bio. But where do you begin?
Creating a good Bumble bio that stands out may sound like an intimidating task, but it's super important you don't half-ass this step. According to Bumble's US data from April, "those who added a bio to their profile experienced an increase in their average number of monthly matches than members who didn't," a Bumble spokesperson says. Clearly, it's important for a better dating experience.
But just because crafting the best Bumble bios sounds intimidating doesn't mean it has to be. Really, it starts with thinking about all of the things that make you you. With the help of a Bumble spokesperson, here are some tips and ideas on how to craft the best Bumble bios to score quality matches.
Tips on How to Write the Best Bumble Bio
Complete your entire profile first. Before deciding on what to include in your bio, Bumble recommends filling out the rest of your profile. Add to your "Interests," "Basics," and "Lifestyle" badges, which will give people an idea of who you are and what you're looking for. Then, take a look at your profile and decide what about yourself is missing from it. Per the Bumble spokesperson, some of the most popular Bumble profiles included information on a user's dating intentions, exercise interest, and zodiac sign.
Highlight the things that matter to you. The Bumble spokesperson said this will help to make sure you're matching with people who share similar interests as you. For example, if it's important you match with a fellow dog-lover, make sure you mention something about your own dog (or the type of dog you want). To stand out from the billion other profiles that mention a dog, don't be afraid to add some spice to your profile. "Try to jazz your bio up a little by exaggerating your statements or cracking a joke," the Bumble spokesperson says. Just remember, you don't have to say too much — brevity is key.
Focus on the positive and not the negative. Bumble data shows that positivity is one of the most important traits for Bumble members worldwide, according to the spokesperson. Instead of listing out what you don't want in a partner, hone in on what you do want. "Focusing on what you do like can be a much better way to find someone who ticks all your boxes," the rep says. In other words, don't use your bio to list out things you're not looking for in a dating-app match.
Ask those closest to you what makes you special. Ask your friends or family what key things they think a date should know about you, the Bumble spokesperson suggests. "They won't overthink it in the same way you might."
Once you're ready to write your bio, here are some ideas to get the juices flowing. Feel free to copy and paste, or tailor the below to your individual preferences and needs.
Funny Bumble Bios
"Would do dirty things to [insert the name of your favorite sports team's coach] if it meant the [your favorite sports team] would win."
"If you're not messing up the lyrics to 'Fergalicious' with me, I don't want it."
"My definition of loving me unconditionally is always giving me the last mozzarella stick."
"As an English major, you will 1,000 percent make my day if you prove you know the difference between your and you're."
"Always hungry, and I mean, physically hungry — not hungry for success, or anything."
Best Bumble Bios
"If you're down to rave with me, you have my heart."
"Looking for someone who also has an adventurous palate!"
"I'm DTF. Yes, that's down to food — always."
"If attending a Saturday morning SoulCycle date is your idea of 'fun,' I'm yours."
"What's your most controversial opinion?"
Sexy Bumble Bios
"Ice cream is my second favorite thing to eat in bed."
"In the mood for a glizzy, and not the hot dog kind."
"Looking to cook my famous lasagna in exchange for you showing me your favorite bagel spot the next morning."
"Nothing will turn me on more than a match who knows their Harry Potter."
"My favorite summer activity is playing sand volleyball, so you could say I'm pretty good on my knees."
Good Bumble Bios
"Team sweets over salty. Don't agree? Give me your best argument."
"Tell me about your next tattoo or piercing."
"I would sell my soul for an unlimited supply of my mom's homemade dumplings."
"Must know your thoughts on Beyoncé's new country album."
"If you like Pizza Hut breadsticks, Taylor Swift, and drinking way too many espresso martinis, we'll get along just great."
submitted by mansplanar to MatchMeBro [link] [comments]
Tease slightly. Be humorous. Tell them how good your life is without directly saying it. And pictures pictures pictures. Each picture needs to be high quality. Bio doesn't have the same strength as decent pictures.
Write something that tells me about you--what you like to eat, do in your free time, watch on tv, last cool place you visited or want to visit next, whatever. The worst is guys who write nothing or just their IG handle, FFS. If that's all the time and thoughtfullness you can put into a profile, I'm going to assume that's what I'll get from you in a relationship. Also, is it laziness or complete lack of self-awareness? This is why writing even a little bit about yourself can be really important in this context.
Every girl is gonna be attracted to something different and the character limit blows. Just be yourself
OK, so, you officially downloaded Bumble, picked out your best dating-app-friendly photos, and brushed up on some Bumble openers. Now, it's time to create the best Bumble bio. But where do you begin?
Creating a good Bumble bio that stands out may sound like an intimidating task, but it's super important you don't half-ass this step. According to Bumble's US data from April, "those who added a bio to their profile experienced an increase in their average number of monthly matches than members who didn't," a Bumble spokesperson says. Clearly, it's important for a better dating experience.
But just because crafting the best Bumble bios sounds intimidating doesn't mean it has to be. Really, it starts with thinking about all of the things that make you you. With the help of a Bumble spokesperson, here are some tips and ideas on how to craft the best Bumble bios to score quality matches.
Tips on How to Write the Best Bumble Bio
Complete your entire profile first. Before deciding on what to include in your bio, Bumble recommends filling out the rest of your profile. Add to your "Interests," "Basics," and "Lifestyle" badges, which will give people an idea of who you are and what you're looking for. Then, take a look at your profile and decide what about yourself is missing from it. Per the Bumble spokesperson, some of the most popular Bumble profiles included information on a user's dating intentions, exercise interest, and zodiac sign.
Highlight the things that matter to you. The Bumble spokesperson said this will help to make sure you're matching with people who share similar interests as you. For example, if it's important you match with a fellow dog-lover, make sure you mention something about your own dog (or the type of dog you want). To stand out from the billion other profiles that mention a dog, don't be afraid to add some spice to your profile. "Try to jazz your bio up a little by exaggerating your statements or cracking a joke," the Bumble spokesperson says. Just remember, you don't have to say too much — brevity is key.
Focus on the positive and not the negative. Bumble data shows that positivity is one of the most important traits for Bumble members worldwide, according to the spokesperson. Instead of listing out what you don't want in a partner, hone in on what you do want. "Focusing on what you do like can be a much better way to find someone who ticks all your boxes," the rep says. In other words, don't use your bio to list out things you're not looking for in a dating-app match.
Ask those closest to you what makes you special. Ask your friends or family what key things they think a date should know about you, the Bumble spokesperson suggests. "They won't overthink it in the same way you might."
Once you're ready to write your bio, here are some ideas to get the juices flowing. Feel free to copy and paste, or tailor the below to your individual preferences and needs.
Funny Bumble Bios
"Would do dirty things to [insert the name of your favorite sports team's coach] if it meant the [your favorite sports team] would win."
"If you're not messing up the lyrics to 'Fergalicious' with me, I don't want it."
"My definition of loving me unconditionally is always giving me the last mozzarella stick."
"As an English major, you will 1,000 percent make my day if you prove you know the difference between your and you're."
"Always hungry, and I mean, physically hungry — not hungry for success, or anything."
Best Bumble Bios
"If you're down to rave with me, you have my heart."
"Looking for someone who also has an adventurous palate!"
"I'm DTF. Yes, that's down to food — always."
"If attending a Saturday morning SoulCycle date is your idea of 'fun,' I'm yours."
"What's your most controversial opinion?"
Sexy Bumble Bios
"Ice cream is my second favorite thing to eat in bed."
"In the mood for a glizzy, and not the hot dog kind."
"Looking to cook my famous lasagna in exchange for you showing me your favorite bagel spot the next morning."
"Nothing will turn me on more than a match who knows their Harry Potter."
"My favorite summer activity is playing sand volleyball, so you could say I'm pretty good on my knees."
Good Bumble Bios
"Team sweets over salty. Don't agree? Give me your best argument."
"Tell me about your next tattoo or piercing."
"I would sell my soul for an unlimited supply of my mom's homemade dumplings."
"Must know your thoughts on Beyoncé's new country album."
"If you like Pizza Hut breadsticks, Taylor Swift, and drinking way too many espresso martinis, we'll get along just great."
2024.06.01 15:33 xfallenangelx95 28/F I'm slowly losing hope I'll ever find someone new to talk to 😞 I'm looking for people who really want to make friends and talk on a daily basis - People who talk a lot and never lie to others 🤗 I'm looking for like-minded people who also have no friends and love serious yet warm discussions
(Only Europe, Please) - short note - If you're not into reading or receiving long messages,don't read any further + Please If you don't want to read everything because of my post being too long for you & instead of reading It all - ..skip some parts - find another person to talk to.Let's respect each other and our free time. All people criticizing/making fun of me & other people - will be blocked.Pretty much as people questioning my post and giving me unsolicited advice.I'm not here for any conflicts and I know I can't please everyone - I know I never will.. However It's me who should feel comfortable in my new potential friendship & obviously someone who wants to be my friend - not the whole world.. which is why I don't need any advice from people who don't even want to be a part of my life. The amount of rude people on Reddit always criticizing others and making fun of them is unbelievably high but let me tell you something - NEVER let anyone make choices for you and criticize you only because you're different! Always fight for your dreams and never let anyone make you think you're worthless! It's your life and you're the one deciding what's best for you - If you want to judge me despite not even wanting to talk to me or give me advice better block me! I'm an adult woman and I make all decisions on my own.I'm not trying to "fit in" and be like everyone else - just to get more attention.Accept me for who I am or let go - is my motto.
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Hello guys! 🙂 (read everything before you decide to send me a message) Please send me a message ONLY If you're in the same situation and If your expectations are the same as mine.I want to find like minded people from Europe (Why Europe? Read my post to find out) I'm looking for something permanent (remember - you can feel lonely even If you're surrounded by others - If there's no emotional bond) I'm fed up of meeting people who never make time for me & only text me once or twice a week to ask me "what are you up to?" Out of boredom.I don't want to meet people asking others a million of questions like "what's your favorite movie?" Just to give them one word answer and ask them another question "and music? Your favorite song?" I'm looking for something "deeper" & different 🙂
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What kind of friend would I like to find? Someone to talk to on a daily basis - Someone who needs It & wants It just as much as me
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What are my expectations? I would like to meet someone in a similar situation – why? Because I honestly feel like only a person with the same expectations and a similar outlook on life would get along with me & because I feel more comfortable talking to people like me..Friendless people who need a strong bond - people without friends and partners.. Don't get me wrong…Most people deserve to be happy and It's good to have friends but people who have friends or families in real life are usually more focused on them (which is completely understandable) & have less time for others + I simply don't want to be replaced by anyone..I kind of envy people who can call others , true friends given I don't have an emotional bond with any of my acquaintances. Please send me a message only If you're not In a relationship and don't have friends for the same reasons I've already mentioned before
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Whenever I hear that others have friends I simply get sad because (believe it or not) If I had to choose between 20 people to talk to (acquaintances) and one special person - I'd choose that one special person without any hesitation .
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I also want to talk to others every day because..I want to see someone’s effort & be someone's first choice - not another person to have random conversations with..some people ask me "Why do you want to talk to people from Europe?" Well..Because I would like to see someone I'd get along with - In the far future - face to face :) + I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to receive a message - waiting 6 hours to receive a message is more than enough
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I'm by no means criticizing people who don't want to talk to others often / People who really are super busy & People who want to find someone to have unimportant conversations with - I'm aware that not everyone has the same expectations which is why everything you're reading now - is here for a reason :) All I'm suggesting is - I don't want anything temporary and I don't want to be the one always giving more than receiving.Listen people - I used to ignore being..ignored by others..always being just an option to talk to during tough times or moments of boredom.I was too young to realize that I was never important enough for most people that were a part of my life. I don't know who needs to hear this but..No one is too busy to make time for you! People make excuses to avoid others because they prioritize everything and (maybe) everyone..over them. It's true that most people are busy - but It takes only a few seconds to start a conversation (If you're into short messages) and a few minutes (1-10/15) to type a long message . Don't let anyone lie to you.
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Truth is that most people either don't like you enough to make time for you or just simply - feel no need to talk to others often but are they too busy? No..You don't need to send me a message just to ask me and tell me "Do you really want to talk every day? I like long messages but I can't promise to contact you often" If you really are unsure please don't send me a message.I don't need more acquaintances aka people to talk to - occasionally.
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I'm not trying to sound rude but conversations once or twice a week wouldn't be enough for me and I don't need them... Let me tell you one thing – A true friend would never just give up on you for no reason :) It’s always possible to find someone to have a random conversation with – someone willing to send you one message once or twice a week..but..It’s almost impossible to find people willing to make more time for you.
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I’m not asking a busy person to make time for me by changing some plans! Absolutely not! I’m here to find someone who wants to talk daily (throughout the day or maybe even night) of one’s own will.Someone looking for the same kind of connection.Strong friendships are based on mutual support. One of the best things you can do for a friend in need, is just to be there for them when they want to talk.I often see posts from people who always say how friendless they are because they don't feel loved or appreciated by their "friends" remember! A true friend - someone who truly likes you or someone who wants to get to know you - will always find time for you.
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I'm not interested in small talk/short messages - I love long and meaningful conversations. It's so easy to find someone who loves abbreviations and questions like "How are you?" How was your day? Or what are you interested in? But so hard/almost impossible to find a person who knows how to keep a conversation going & show others some effort.Building and maintaining friendships takes time and effort.Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relations with other people.Close friendships are so important to us because they are so difficult to form + Having friends can help you feel as if you belong to something that brings purpose and connection to your life
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• I do NOT respond to any „Hey,hmu” or „u want to talk?” type of messages (super short messages or messages full of abbreviations – I literally can’t stand abbreviations and acronyms in text messages) ALL messages full of abbreviations will immediately be ignored.I also don't like it when people ignore everything I say in private messages just to focus on a random question or? When they start talking only about themselves and don't ever ask me anything. I love conversations with people referring to everything I say...I want everything I say and do - to be reciprocated
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• No NSFW profiles (checking mental health subreddits NOT included as I'm a huge empath and always try to understand others) - Please! I'm not looking for anyone to flirt with and I'm not looking for a partner either. I always check people's profiles (even comment history) - To avoid guys, trying to get inappropriate pictures from adult women or? flirt with them + I don't want to see you with no clothes on so If you're on Reddit only because you want others to see what's underneath your clothes - I'm not for you! I just simply don't want to see any s e x related activity on your profile If you want to talk to me.
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• If both of us (you and I) are from the same country (I live in a non-English speaking country) - I want to communicate with you in our first language! No - Not because I don't understand English - because as you see - I do. Why then? English is simply overrated and people don't appreciate other languages as much as they should. So.. If we're from the same country and you want to talk only in English (which is quite common on reddit) - Talk to someone else. I just don't want to talk to a person from the same country as mine - in a foreign language as It's just something I don't understand even If all you want is to improve your language skills
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• Please only adult people 18-36 (age range) It doesn't matter to me If you're younger or older than me (as long as you're not underage) So.. don't worry! I just want to have discussions with emotionally mature people :)
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• I don’t respond to messages I don’t find interesting even If they're long - If after receiving and reading your message I don't feel comfortable or think "I wouldn't get along with him/her" I simply do not respond (what I’m suggesting is that I don’t always respond to someone’s first or second message because..sometimes you just know If you’d get along with someone or not- I’d never ignore anyone after days or weeks of daily conversations though) just because I don’t want to do anything forcefully & because I don’t want to lead anyone on. I read all messages but I definitely don't respond to all of them! I want to make it clear because I don't want to be accused of not responding and not reading people's messages! - Some people don't message me back as well and even If It's a bit disappointing I'm ok with that! - as long as there's no emotional bond - Not responding to someone's first or second message Is completely OK! If people think they wouldn't get along with a stranger - is there a reason to start a conversation? I don't think so. I can't stand being ignored after days or weeks of daily conversations and seeing people changing priorities over time.. but that's something different - something I don't want to go through ever again for real. If I'm really interested in someone's message it's impossible to hear from me "I'm too busy" because I know myself and If I had no time for others - I wouldn't be here. I don't want to pretend someone I'm not and always try to find some cheap excuses to avoid others. (unlike most people who don't want to talk to others)
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• Don’t ask me “Can you tell me something about yourself?” If you really want to get to know me - you can ask me questions :) I'm an open book.
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• It would be better If you guys were into emojis - like me - to describe your emotions In text messages. Two emojis - 🙂 and 🙁 are completely enough! I just don't like emotionless conversations.I also don't like it when people say "yeah" or yea"as it sounds dismissively. First impression Is everything to me! I want to see your kindness even in a text message - Emojis are very helpful to express your emotions.I don't want to meet people who say "crying Is a weakness" - It's OK to cry even If you're a guy!
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• I want to talk on reddit first (just to make sure If I'd get along with you) before moving to Discord or some other app
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• I would rather talk to a homebody - not another person who always has something to do as people who are very busy don't even have time for daily conversations
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• If you're another person interested only in "childish conversations" such as "HEYOOO! I'M BORED! Ya like Pizza or cheese? xDDDD 🤣" I'm begging you! Don't send me a message.I'm not a child anymore and such messages don't make me smile or laugh.I'm looking for someone interested In serious discussions - not another person just seeking some entertainment out of boredom . Conversations with sarcastic undertones (even when It comes to some emojis such as 🤣😂) are not for me. Your typing style matters to me! Why? when It comes to online conversations with someone new - It's not always possible to know If someone Is laughing at you.. or with you. Let me tell you something else! Jokes about cancer, disabilities and death are UNACCEPTABLE to me. If you find joy In someone else's misfortune you are not a person I want to know.
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• Time response matters to me a lot! I would never ask anyone to be online all day long and I'm NOT asking any of you for any instant messaging as I'm someone who would rather wait an hour or two to receive a proper response instead of some short and pointless messages but I'm interested only in daily conversations and I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to get a message from you.I don't need unbelievably long messages either! Messages as long as the second paragraph of my post - are completely enough. If you like longer messages? you can send me a longer message, but If you want to send me one word or one sentence as a response to my post - don't expect a reaction from me. I don't want to come across as rude - I just don't want to waste your time
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• I'm strongly AGAINST picking on people you don't even want to chat with - and making fun of them! I can't stand people who criticize others publicly or make fun of them! (only because they disagree with someone they don't even know) There's no place In my life for someone using Reddit, to hurt other people
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• I'm not into foul language and I definitely don't want to talk to people who swear a lot...
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• I want to meet assertive people who know what they want and always stand up for their friends
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• I want to meet someone willing to call me In the future, someone spontaneously sending me pictures of animals or food, et cetera. I want more than just text conversations.. 🌻
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Why can’t you see any of my hobbies listed down below? Because what really matters to me is..who you are (If you’re honest, talkative ,understanding, caring and trustworthy – for example) just simply – It matters to me what you’re like! not what you like.Don’t get me wrong – you can tell me what your hobbies are but from my point of view - people's hobbies are important - If you want to find a gaming buddy or If you want to meet someone to hang out with in real life and..go bowling for example.What most people seem to care about are other people's passions – I don’t. I get along with other people despite having completely different hobbies but I absolutely don’t get along with people way different than me (different expectations and outlook on life – way different sense of humor or personality traits – It’s just an example) It doesn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to me If you're a gamer or? Someone interested in photography! It doesn't make any difference - > as long as you're talkative and kind and If you also want to find someone willing to stay in your life..for good - But If you're into small talk and all you want is to...type and receive super short messages or If you're here only because you're bored and don't know what to do + If you're a very sarcastic person - I'm definitely not for you! I don't get along with overly sarcastic people turning everything into a joke. Friendships should be natural – not forced. I wouldn't get along with people who laugh at everything.. In my opinion most people are way too sarcastic.. It's quite sad... Sarcasm can also be another form of passive-aggressive behavior.
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People who want to be to friends should feel comfortable and have something in common. No - not necessarily a similar taste in music or movies but something else..Most friendships don't fizzle out because of people not having the same hobbies but..because they just simply have different expectations when It comes to something important.I'm not here out of boredom and trust me - I'm not here to meet as many people as possible.I choose quality over quantity.I highly value myself and my time & Sometimes one person but a person who makes you feel comfortable and understood - is more than enough :) We ALL can choose what kind of people we’d like to talk to and maybe even become really good friends with and I? I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.We all have some expectations after all.I know that people don't have to talk as often as possible in order to become friends but I'm interested only in daily conversations. If you really need someone to talk to due to loneliness and If you have time to talk to me daily (throughout the day and maybe even night) I always make time for others.I'm literally always available.I could even stay up all night long only to talk to someone important to me. I’m ready to commit but only If there’s some chemistry between me and someone else.I don’t do anything forcefully.
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If you want to talk to me tell me your story - tell me why you're here, what kind of friend would you like to meet :) Et cetera.Such messages are way more interesting to me than...someone's long list of hobbies. I know! It's unusual on reddit but I don't make friends based on hobbies..I want to meet someone with the same mindset as mine to finally feel understood and get close to someone new. You can share your problems with me - I absolutely don't mind "complaining" as I've been through a lot in my life.What do people usually tell you when you tell them that something's wrong? "Don't complain" or "Life's not over yet - one day you'll be happy" or "There are worse situations than yours" and..obviously "Find a therapist" Life's not a fairytale and sometimes things don't go as planned.Emotions shouldn't be bottled up.I'm sick of people always telling others "everything's gonna be ok" move on " & more..Trust me people - not everyone wants to hear "Just believe in yourself and everything's gonna be ok" Some people take it as reassurance - but others? They would rather hear something different 🙁Imagine being told that things will be okay, only for them to get worse..Do you guys know why telling someone "everything's gonna be ok" Is wrong? Because you can't see the future.
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You can't guarantee others that one day they'll finally be happy + when It comes to social interactions - We're responsible only for ourselves - not others & as you guys know people let us down quite often (sometimes even when there's no reason) so instead of telling people how they should move on, forget everything and be happy or asking them to find a therapist - be there for them! Always be willing to listen to them If you really like them or want to get to know them & don't suggest everyone in a tough situation to find a therapist because even the best therapist won't ever replace a true friend + It's quite normal to be disappointed If people always do something to hurt you. Sharing your hardships with other people in a very similar situation or exactly the same one - is VERY helpful If the other person understands you & wants to start all over by just letting it all out! Feeling emotional support instead of always hearing some "positive quotes" or someone saying "Stop complaining let's talk about something else - Is very important! "Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. I appreciate sensitive people who always try to understand others. If after hearing a sad story all you want to say is "forget the past and move on" you're not for me. It's important to be a good listener and provide emotional support to others
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Please - If you're a completely different person than the described type of person I'm looking for (If you love abbreviations,If you don't need a stable friendship, If you're sarcastic and quiet) or If you simply disagree with my post - don't force yourself to send me a message.I want my new potential friendship to be natural which is why I want you to contact me only If your needs are the same - I don't want you to pretend someone you're not - only to please me - Pretending to be someone you're not - is the worst.I want to finally be happy again & find someone "always" wanting to talk - sending me random pictures throughout the day - food pictures or pictures of some animals. What is the most important to me? I want to find people who value online friendships as much as they would value real life ones as there's another human being on the other side
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No comments please.Only Private messages and chat requests 🌺
I know It's possible to meet people with exactly the same expectations as mine but It's just not easy because most people are Interested In temporary and entertaining conversations. People like me are just "different" I really want to finally find someone who loves emojis as much as I do.. someone who loves sweet, warm and serious discussions at the same time. Emojis really do - change conversations 😊
submitted by xfallenangelx95 to InternetFriends [link] [comments]
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Hello guys! 🙂 (read everything before you decide to send me a message) Please send me a message ONLY If you're in the same situation and If your expectations are the same as mine.I want to find like minded people from Europe (Why Europe? Read my post to find out) I'm looking for something permanent (remember - you can feel lonely even If you're surrounded by others - If there's no emotional bond) I'm fed up of meeting people who never make time for me & only text me once or twice a week to ask me "what are you up to?" Out of boredom.I don't want to meet people asking others a million of questions like "what's your favorite movie?" Just to give them one word answer and ask them another question "and music? Your favorite song?" I'm looking for something "deeper" & different 🙂
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What kind of friend would I like to find? Someone to talk to on a daily basis - Someone who needs It & wants It just as much as me
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What are my expectations? I would like to meet someone in a similar situation – why? Because I honestly feel like only a person with the same expectations and a similar outlook on life would get along with me & because I feel more comfortable talking to people like me..Friendless people who need a strong bond - people without friends and partners.. Don't get me wrong…Most people deserve to be happy and It's good to have friends but people who have friends or families in real life are usually more focused on them (which is completely understandable) & have less time for others + I simply don't want to be replaced by anyone..I kind of envy people who can call others , true friends given I don't have an emotional bond with any of my acquaintances. Please send me a message only If you're not In a relationship and don't have friends for the same reasons I've already mentioned before
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Whenever I hear that others have friends I simply get sad because (believe it or not) If I had to choose between 20 people to talk to (acquaintances) and one special person - I'd choose that one special person without any hesitation .
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I also want to talk to others every day because..I want to see someone’s effort & be someone's first choice - not another person to have random conversations with..some people ask me "Why do you want to talk to people from Europe?" Well..Because I would like to see someone I'd get along with - In the far future - face to face :) + I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to receive a message - waiting 6 hours to receive a message is more than enough
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I'm by no means criticizing people who don't want to talk to others often / People who really are super busy & People who want to find someone to have unimportant conversations with - I'm aware that not everyone has the same expectations which is why everything you're reading now - is here for a reason :) All I'm suggesting is - I don't want anything temporary and I don't want to be the one always giving more than receiving.Listen people - I used to ignore being..ignored by others..always being just an option to talk to during tough times or moments of boredom.I was too young to realize that I was never important enough for most people that were a part of my life. I don't know who needs to hear this but..No one is too busy to make time for you! People make excuses to avoid others because they prioritize everything and (maybe) everyone..over them. It's true that most people are busy - but It takes only a few seconds to start a conversation (If you're into short messages) and a few minutes (1-10/15) to type a long message . Don't let anyone lie to you.
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Truth is that most people either don't like you enough to make time for you or just simply - feel no need to talk to others often but are they too busy? No..You don't need to send me a message just to ask me and tell me "Do you really want to talk every day? I like long messages but I can't promise to contact you often" If you really are unsure please don't send me a message.I don't need more acquaintances aka people to talk to - occasionally.
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I'm not trying to sound rude but conversations once or twice a week wouldn't be enough for me and I don't need them... Let me tell you one thing – A true friend would never just give up on you for no reason :) It’s always possible to find someone to have a random conversation with – someone willing to send you one message once or twice a week..but..It’s almost impossible to find people willing to make more time for you.
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I’m not asking a busy person to make time for me by changing some plans! Absolutely not! I’m here to find someone who wants to talk daily (throughout the day or maybe even night) of one’s own will.Someone looking for the same kind of connection.Strong friendships are based on mutual support. One of the best things you can do for a friend in need, is just to be there for them when they want to talk.I often see posts from people who always say how friendless they are because they don't feel loved or appreciated by their "friends" remember! A true friend - someone who truly likes you or someone who wants to get to know you - will always find time for you.
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I'm not interested in small talk/short messages - I love long and meaningful conversations. It's so easy to find someone who loves abbreviations and questions like "How are you?" How was your day? Or what are you interested in? But so hard/almost impossible to find a person who knows how to keep a conversation going & show others some effort.Building and maintaining friendships takes time and effort.Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relations with other people.Close friendships are so important to us because they are so difficult to form + Having friends can help you feel as if you belong to something that brings purpose and connection to your life
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• I do NOT respond to any „Hey,hmu” or „u want to talk?” type of messages (super short messages or messages full of abbreviations – I literally can’t stand abbreviations and acronyms in text messages) ALL messages full of abbreviations will immediately be ignored.I also don't like it when people ignore everything I say in private messages just to focus on a random question or? When they start talking only about themselves and don't ever ask me anything. I love conversations with people referring to everything I say...I want everything I say and do - to be reciprocated
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• No NSFW profiles (checking mental health subreddits NOT included as I'm a huge empath and always try to understand others) - Please! I'm not looking for anyone to flirt with and I'm not looking for a partner either. I always check people's profiles (even comment history) - To avoid guys, trying to get inappropriate pictures from adult women or? flirt with them + I don't want to see you with no clothes on so If you're on Reddit only because you want others to see what's underneath your clothes - I'm not for you! I just simply don't want to see any s e x related activity on your profile If you want to talk to me.
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• If both of us (you and I) are from the same country (I live in a non-English speaking country) - I want to communicate with you in our first language! No - Not because I don't understand English - because as you see - I do. Why then? English is simply overrated and people don't appreciate other languages as much as they should. So.. If we're from the same country and you want to talk only in English (which is quite common on reddit) - Talk to someone else. I just don't want to talk to a person from the same country as mine - in a foreign language as It's just something I don't understand even If all you want is to improve your language skills
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• Please only adult people 18-36 (age range) It doesn't matter to me If you're younger or older than me (as long as you're not underage) So.. don't worry! I just want to have discussions with emotionally mature people :)
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• I don’t respond to messages I don’t find interesting even If they're long - If after receiving and reading your message I don't feel comfortable or think "I wouldn't get along with him/her" I simply do not respond (what I’m suggesting is that I don’t always respond to someone’s first or second message because..sometimes you just know If you’d get along with someone or not- I’d never ignore anyone after days or weeks of daily conversations though) just because I don’t want to do anything forcefully & because I don’t want to lead anyone on. I read all messages but I definitely don't respond to all of them! I want to make it clear because I don't want to be accused of not responding and not reading people's messages! - Some people don't message me back as well and even If It's a bit disappointing I'm ok with that! - as long as there's no emotional bond - Not responding to someone's first or second message Is completely OK! If people think they wouldn't get along with a stranger - is there a reason to start a conversation? I don't think so. I can't stand being ignored after days or weeks of daily conversations and seeing people changing priorities over time.. but that's something different - something I don't want to go through ever again for real. If I'm really interested in someone's message it's impossible to hear from me "I'm too busy" because I know myself and If I had no time for others - I wouldn't be here. I don't want to pretend someone I'm not and always try to find some cheap excuses to avoid others. (unlike most people who don't want to talk to others)
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• Don’t ask me “Can you tell me something about yourself?” If you really want to get to know me - you can ask me questions :) I'm an open book.
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• It would be better If you guys were into emojis - like me - to describe your emotions In text messages. Two emojis - 🙂 and 🙁 are completely enough! I just don't like emotionless conversations.I also don't like it when people say "yeah" or yea"as it sounds dismissively. First impression Is everything to me! I want to see your kindness even in a text message - Emojis are very helpful to express your emotions.I don't want to meet people who say "crying Is a weakness" - It's OK to cry even If you're a guy!
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• I want to talk on reddit first (just to make sure If I'd get along with you) before moving to Discord or some other app
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• I would rather talk to a homebody - not another person who always has something to do as people who are very busy don't even have time for daily conversations
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• If you're another person interested only in "childish conversations" such as "HEYOOO! I'M BORED! Ya like Pizza or cheese? xDDDD 🤣" I'm begging you! Don't send me a message.I'm not a child anymore and such messages don't make me smile or laugh.I'm looking for someone interested In serious discussions - not another person just seeking some entertainment out of boredom . Conversations with sarcastic undertones (even when It comes to some emojis such as 🤣😂) are not for me. Your typing style matters to me! Why? when It comes to online conversations with someone new - It's not always possible to know If someone Is laughing at you.. or with you. Let me tell you something else! Jokes about cancer, disabilities and death are UNACCEPTABLE to me. If you find joy In someone else's misfortune you are not a person I want to know.
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• Time response matters to me a lot! I would never ask anyone to be online all day long and I'm NOT asking any of you for any instant messaging as I'm someone who would rather wait an hour or two to receive a proper response instead of some short and pointless messages but I'm interested only in daily conversations and I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to get a message from you.I don't need unbelievably long messages either! Messages as long as the second paragraph of my post - are completely enough. If you like longer messages? you can send me a longer message, but If you want to send me one word or one sentence as a response to my post - don't expect a reaction from me. I don't want to come across as rude - I just don't want to waste your time
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• I'm strongly AGAINST picking on people you don't even want to chat with - and making fun of them! I can't stand people who criticize others publicly or make fun of them! (only because they disagree with someone they don't even know) There's no place In my life for someone using Reddit, to hurt other people
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• I'm not into foul language and I definitely don't want to talk to people who swear a lot...
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• I want to meet assertive people who know what they want and always stand up for their friends
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• I want to meet someone willing to call me In the future, someone spontaneously sending me pictures of animals or food, et cetera. I want more than just text conversations.. 🌻
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Why can’t you see any of my hobbies listed down below? Because what really matters to me is..who you are (If you’re honest, talkative ,understanding, caring and trustworthy – for example) just simply – It matters to me what you’re like! not what you like.Don’t get me wrong – you can tell me what your hobbies are but from my point of view - people's hobbies are important - If you want to find a gaming buddy or If you want to meet someone to hang out with in real life and..go bowling for example.What most people seem to care about are other people's passions – I don’t. I get along with other people despite having completely different hobbies but I absolutely don’t get along with people way different than me (different expectations and outlook on life – way different sense of humor or personality traits – It’s just an example) It doesn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to me If you're a gamer or? Someone interested in photography! It doesn't make any difference - > as long as you're talkative and kind and If you also want to find someone willing to stay in your life..for good - But If you're into small talk and all you want is to...type and receive super short messages or If you're here only because you're bored and don't know what to do + If you're a very sarcastic person - I'm definitely not for you! I don't get along with overly sarcastic people turning everything into a joke. Friendships should be natural – not forced. I wouldn't get along with people who laugh at everything.. In my opinion most people are way too sarcastic.. It's quite sad... Sarcasm can also be another form of passive-aggressive behavior.
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People who want to be to friends should feel comfortable and have something in common. No - not necessarily a similar taste in music or movies but something else..Most friendships don't fizzle out because of people not having the same hobbies but..because they just simply have different expectations when It comes to something important.I'm not here out of boredom and trust me - I'm not here to meet as many people as possible.I choose quality over quantity.I highly value myself and my time & Sometimes one person but a person who makes you feel comfortable and understood - is more than enough :) We ALL can choose what kind of people we’d like to talk to and maybe even become really good friends with and I? I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.We all have some expectations after all.I know that people don't have to talk as often as possible in order to become friends but I'm interested only in daily conversations. If you really need someone to talk to due to loneliness and If you have time to talk to me daily (throughout the day and maybe even night) I always make time for others.I'm literally always available.I could even stay up all night long only to talk to someone important to me. I’m ready to commit but only If there’s some chemistry between me and someone else.I don’t do anything forcefully.
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If you want to talk to me tell me your story - tell me why you're here, what kind of friend would you like to meet :) Et cetera.Such messages are way more interesting to me than...someone's long list of hobbies. I know! It's unusual on reddit but I don't make friends based on hobbies..I want to meet someone with the same mindset as mine to finally feel understood and get close to someone new. You can share your problems with me - I absolutely don't mind "complaining" as I've been through a lot in my life.What do people usually tell you when you tell them that something's wrong? "Don't complain" or "Life's not over yet - one day you'll be happy" or "There are worse situations than yours" and..obviously "Find a therapist" Life's not a fairytale and sometimes things don't go as planned.Emotions shouldn't be bottled up.I'm sick of people always telling others "everything's gonna be ok" move on " & more..Trust me people - not everyone wants to hear "Just believe in yourself and everything's gonna be ok" Some people take it as reassurance - but others? They would rather hear something different 🙁Imagine being told that things will be okay, only for them to get worse..Do you guys know why telling someone "everything's gonna be ok" Is wrong? Because you can't see the future.
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You can't guarantee others that one day they'll finally be happy + when It comes to social interactions - We're responsible only for ourselves - not others & as you guys know people let us down quite often (sometimes even when there's no reason) so instead of telling people how they should move on, forget everything and be happy or asking them to find a therapist - be there for them! Always be willing to listen to them If you really like them or want to get to know them & don't suggest everyone in a tough situation to find a therapist because even the best therapist won't ever replace a true friend + It's quite normal to be disappointed If people always do something to hurt you. Sharing your hardships with other people in a very similar situation or exactly the same one - is VERY helpful If the other person understands you & wants to start all over by just letting it all out! Feeling emotional support instead of always hearing some "positive quotes" or someone saying "Stop complaining let's talk about something else - Is very important! "Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. I appreciate sensitive people who always try to understand others. If after hearing a sad story all you want to say is "forget the past and move on" you're not for me. It's important to be a good listener and provide emotional support to others
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Please - If you're a completely different person than the described type of person I'm looking for (If you love abbreviations,If you don't need a stable friendship, If you're sarcastic and quiet) or If you simply disagree with my post - don't force yourself to send me a message.I want my new potential friendship to be natural which is why I want you to contact me only If your needs are the same - I don't want you to pretend someone you're not - only to please me - Pretending to be someone you're not - is the worst.I want to finally be happy again & find someone "always" wanting to talk - sending me random pictures throughout the day - food pictures or pictures of some animals. What is the most important to me? I want to find people who value online friendships as much as they would value real life ones as there's another human being on the other side
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No comments please.Only Private messages and chat requests 🌺
I know It's possible to meet people with exactly the same expectations as mine but It's just not easy because most people are Interested In temporary and entertaining conversations. People like me are just "different" I really want to finally find someone who loves emojis as much as I do.. someone who loves sweet, warm and serious discussions at the same time. Emojis really do - change conversations 😊
2024.06.01 15:31 tutankhamunsmum What credit card should I get?
I am starting my medical residency in the US and I have never had a US bank account because I went to university abroad. I am a US citizen though. My pay is approx 70k annually at the moment, groceries will be my biggest expense (after rent) at about 700$. I dont drive so no gas. I plan to travel 3 or 4 times a year.
where should I start? what should I look out for? what other information is important?,
CREDIT PROFILE: N/a
- annual pay: 70k
CATEGORIES * OK with category-specific cards?: Yes * OK with rotating category cards?: YES * Estimate average monthly spend in the categories below. Only include what you can pay by credit card. * Dining $: 200 * Groceries $: 700 * Gas $: 0 * Travel $: 160 flights + 300 other * Do you plan on using this card abroad for a significant length of time (study abroad, digital nomad, expat, extended travel)?: no * Any other categories (examples: phone/internet, insurance) or stores (example: Amazon) with significant, regular credit card spend (the more you specify, the better): $200 * Any other significant, regular credit card spend you didn't include above?: $ * Can you pay rent by credit card? If yes, list rent amount and if there's a fee for paying by credit card: $ MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS (delete lines that don't apply) * Current member of Amazon Prime?: yes * Current Verizon postpaid customer?: no * Current member of Costco or Sam's Club? no * Currently paying $13.99/month or more for Disney Bundle (Disney+ / Hulu / EPSN+) or other Hulu services? no * Current member of Chase, US Bank or any other big bank?: no * Active US military?:no * Are you open to Business Cards?: (these are an option if you have any kind of side gig, such as selling on eBay or Etsy) no
PURPOSE * What's the purpose of your next card (choose ONE)?: first credit card
* If you answered "first credit card", are you an authorized user on any other cards? no * Do you have any cards you've been looking at? not really
submitted by tutankhamunsmum to CreditCards [link] [comments]
where should I start? what should I look out for? what other information is important?,
CREDIT PROFILE: N/a
- annual pay: 70k
CATEGORIES * OK with category-specific cards?: Yes * OK with rotating category cards?: YES * Estimate average monthly spend in the categories below. Only include what you can pay by credit card. * Dining $: 200 * Groceries $: 700 * Gas $: 0 * Travel $: 160 flights + 300 other * Do you plan on using this card abroad for a significant length of time (study abroad, digital nomad, expat, extended travel)?: no * Any other categories (examples: phone/internet, insurance) or stores (example: Amazon) with significant, regular credit card spend (the more you specify, the better): $200 * Any other significant, regular credit card spend you didn't include above?: $ * Can you pay rent by credit card? If yes, list rent amount and if there's a fee for paying by credit card: $ MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS (delete lines that don't apply) * Current member of Amazon Prime?: yes * Current Verizon postpaid customer?: no * Current member of Costco or Sam's Club? no * Currently paying $13.99/month or more for Disney Bundle (Disney+ / Hulu / EPSN+) or other Hulu services? no * Current member of Chase, US Bank or any other big bank?: no * Active US military?:no * Are you open to Business Cards?: (these are an option if you have any kind of side gig, such as selling on eBay or Etsy) no
PURPOSE * What's the purpose of your next card (choose ONE)?: first credit card
* If you answered "first credit card", are you an authorized user on any other cards? no * Do you have any cards you've been looking at? not really
2024.06.01 15:30 xfallenangelx95 [28/F] It's not easy to find someone to get along with because not all personalities match - I'm looking for someone to talk to on a daily basis - someone friendless, honest,kind and talkative. I'm looking for like minded people - in the same situation as mine. Let everyone be Happy 🍀 [Friendship]
(Only Europe, Please) - short note - If you're not into reading or receiving long messages,don't read any further + Please If you don't want to read everything because of my post being too long for you & instead of reading It all - ..skip some parts - find another person to talk to.Let's respect each other and our free time. All people criticizing/making fun of me & other people - will be blocked.Pretty much as people questioning my post and giving me unsolicited advice.I'm not here for any conflicts and I know I can't please everyone - I know I never will.. However It's me who should feel comfortable in my new potential friendship & obviously someone who wants to be my friend - not the whole world.. which is why I don't need any advice from people who don't even want to be a part of my life. The amount of rude people on Reddit always criticizing others and making fun of them is unbelievably high but let me tell you something - NEVER let anyone make choices for you and criticize you only because you're different! Always fight for your dreams and never let anyone make you think you're worthless! It's your life and you're the one deciding what's best for you - If you want to judge me despite not even wanting to talk to me or give me advice better block me! I'm an adult woman and I make all decisions on my own.I'm not trying to "fit in" and be like everyone else - just to get more attention.Accept me for who I am or let go - is my motto.
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Hello guys! 🙂 (read everything before you decide to send me a message) Please send me a message ONLY If you're in the same situation and If your expectations are the same as mine.I want to find like minded people from Europe (Why Europe? Read my post to find out) I'm looking for something permanent (remember - you can feel lonely even If you're surrounded by others - If there's no emotional bond) I'm fed up of meeting people who never make time for me & only text me once or twice a week to ask me "what are you up to?" Out of boredom.I don't want to meet people asking others a million of questions like "what's your favorite movie?" Just to give them one word answer and ask them another question "and music? Your favorite song?" I'm looking for something "deeper" & different 🙂
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What kind of friend would I like to find? Someone to talk to on a daily basis - Someone who needs It & wants It just as much as me
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What are my expectations? I would like to meet someone in a similar situation – why? Because I honestly feel like only a person with the same expectations and a similar outlook on life would get along with me & because I feel more comfortable talking to people like me..Friendless people who need a strong bond - people without friends and partners.. Don't get me wrong…Most people deserve to be happy and It's good to have friends but people who have friends or families in real life are usually more focused on them (which is completely understandable) & have less time for others + I simply don't want to be replaced by anyone..I kind of envy people who can call others , true friends given I don't have an emotional bond with any of my acquaintances. Please send me a message only If you're not In a relationship and don't have friends for the same reasons I've already mentioned before
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Whenever I hear that others have friends I simply get sad because (believe it or not) If I had to choose between 20 people to talk to (acquaintances) and one special person - I'd choose that one special person without any hesitation .
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I also want to talk to others every day because..I want to see someone’s effort & be someone's first choice - not another person to have random conversations with..some people ask me "Why do you want to talk to people from Europe?" Well..Because I would like to see someone I'd get along with - In the far future - face to face :) + I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to receive a message - waiting 6 hours to receive a message is more than enough
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I'm by no means criticizing people who don't want to talk to others often / People who really are super busy & People who want to find someone to have unimportant conversations with - I'm aware that not everyone has the same expectations which is why everything you're reading now - is here for a reason :) All I'm suggesting is - I don't want anything temporary and I don't want to be the one always giving more than receiving.Listen people - I used to ignore being..ignored by others..always being just an option to talk to during tough times or moments of boredom.I was too young to realize that I was never important enough for most people that were a part of my life. I don't know who needs to hear this but..No one is too busy to make time for you! People make excuses to avoid others because they prioritize everything and (maybe) everyone..over them. It's true that most people are busy - but It takes only a few seconds to start a conversation (If you're into short messages) and a few minutes (1-10/15) to type a long message . Don't let anyone lie to you.
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Truth is that most people either don't like you enough to make time for you or just simply - feel no need to talk to others often but are they too busy? No..You don't need to send me a message just to ask me and tell me "Do you really want to talk every day? I like long messages but I can't promise to contact you often" If you really are unsure please don't send me a message.I don't need more acquaintances aka people to talk to - occasionally.
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I'm not trying to sound rude but conversations once or twice a week wouldn't be enough for me and I don't need them... Let me tell you one thing – A true friend would never just give up on you for no reason :) It’s always possible to find someone to have a random conversation with – someone willing to send you one message once or twice a week..but..It’s almost impossible to find people willing to make more time for you.
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I’m not asking a busy person to make time for me by changing some plans! Absolutely not! I’m here to find someone who wants to talk daily (throughout the day or maybe even night) of one’s own will.Someone looking for the same kind of connection.Strong friendships are based on mutual support. One of the best things you can do for a friend in need, is just to be there for them when they want to talk.I often see posts from people who always say how friendless they are because they don't feel loved or appreciated by their "friends" remember! A true friend - someone who truly likes you or someone who wants to get to know you - will always find time for you.
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I'm not interested in small talk/short messages - I love long and meaningful conversations. It's so easy to find someone who loves abbreviations and questions like "How are you?" How was your day? Or what are you interested in? But so hard/almost impossible to find a person who knows how to keep a conversation going & show others some effort.Building and maintaining friendships takes time and effort.Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relations with other people.Close friendships are so important to us because they are so difficult to form + Having friends can help you feel as if you belong to something that brings purpose and connection to your life
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• I do NOT respond to any „Hey,hmu” or „u want to talk?” type of messages (super short messages or messages full of abbreviations – I literally can’t stand abbreviations and acronyms in text messages) ALL messages full of abbreviations will immediately be ignored.I also don't like it when people ignore everything I say in private messages just to focus on a random question or? When they start talking only about themselves and don't ever ask me anything. I love conversations with people referring to everything I say...I want everything I say and do - to be reciprocated
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• No NSFW profiles (checking mental health subreddits NOT included as I'm a huge empath and always try to understand others) - Please! I'm not looking for anyone to flirt with and I'm not looking for a partner either. I always check people's profiles (even comment history) - To avoid guys, trying to get inappropriate pictures from adult women or? flirt with them + I don't want to see you with no clothes on so If you're on Reddit only because you want others to see what's underneath your clothes - I'm not for you! I just simply don't want to see any s e x related activity on your profile If you want to talk to me.
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• If both of us (you and I) are from the same country (I live in a non-English speaking country) - I want to communicate with you in our first language! No - Not because I don't understand English - because as you see - I do. Why then? English is simply overrated and people don't appreciate other languages as much as they should. So.. If we're from the same country and you want to talk only in English (which is quite common on reddit) - Talk to someone else. I just don't want to talk to a person from the same country as mine - in a foreign language as It's just something I don't understand even If all you want is to improve your language skills
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• Please only adult people 18-36 (age range) It doesn't matter to me If you're younger or older than me (as long as you're not underage) So.. don't worry! I just want to have discussions with emotionally mature people :)
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• I don’t respond to messages I don’t find interesting even If they're long - If after receiving and reading your message I don't feel comfortable or think "I wouldn't get along with him/her" I simply do not respond (what I’m suggesting is that I don’t always respond to someone’s first or second message because..sometimes you just know If you’d get along with someone or not- I’d never ignore anyone after days or weeks of daily conversations though) just because I don’t want to do anything forcefully & because I don’t want to lead anyone on. I read all messages but I definitely don't respond to all of them! I want to make it clear because I don't want to be accused of not responding and not reading people's messages! - Some people don't message me back as well and even If It's a bit disappointing I'm ok with that! - as long as there's no emotional bond - Not responding to someone's first or second message Is completely OK! If people think they wouldn't get along with a stranger - is there a reason to start a conversation? I don't think so. I can't stand being ignored after days or weeks of daily conversations and seeing people changing priorities over time.. but that's something different - something I don't want to go through ever again for real. If I'm really interested in someone's message it's impossible to hear from me "I'm too busy" because I know myself and If I had no time for others - I wouldn't be here. I don't want to pretend someone I'm not and always try to find some cheap excuses to avoid others. (unlike most people who don't want to talk to others)
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• Don’t ask me “Can you tell me something about yourself?” If you really want to get to know me - you can ask me questions :) I'm an open book.
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• It would be better If you guys were into emojis - like me - to describe your emotions In text messages. Two emojis - 🙂 and 🙁 are completely enough! I just don't like emotionless conversations.I also don't like it when people say "yeah" or yea"as it sounds dismissively. First impression Is everything to me! I want to see your kindness even in a text message - Emojis are very helpful to express your emotions.I don't want to meet people who say "crying Is a weakness" - It's OK to cry even If you're a guy!
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• I want to talk on reddit first (just to make sure If I'd get along with you) before moving to Discord or some other app
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• I would rather talk to a homebody - not another person who always has something to do as people who are very busy don't even have time for daily conversations
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• If you're another person interested only in "childish conversations" such as "HEYOOO! I'M BORED! Ya like Pizza or cheese? xDDDD 🤣" I'm begging you! Don't send me a message.I'm not a child anymore and such messages don't make me smile or laugh.I'm looking for someone interested In serious discussions - not another person just seeking some entertainment out of boredom . Conversations with sarcastic undertones (even when It comes to some emojis such as 🤣😂) are not for me. Your typing style matters to me! Why? when It comes to online conversations with someone new - It's not always possible to know If someone Is laughing at you.. or with you. Let me tell you something else! Jokes about cancer, disabilities and death are UNACCEPTABLE to me. If you find joy In someone else's misfortune you are not a person I want to know.
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• Time response matters to me a lot! I would never ask anyone to be online all day long and I'm NOT asking any of you for any instant messaging as I'm someone who would rather wait an hour or two to receive a proper response instead of some short and pointless messages but I'm interested only in daily conversations and I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to get a message from you.I don't need unbelievably long messages either! Messages as long as the second paragraph of my post - are completely enough. If you like longer messages? you can send me a longer message, but If you want to send me one word or one sentence as a response to my post - don't expect a reaction from me. I don't want to come across as rude - I just don't want to waste your time
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• I'm strongly AGAINST picking on people you don't even want to chat with - and making fun of them! I can't stand people who criticize others publicly or make fun of them! (only because they disagree with someone they don't even know) There's no place In my life for someone using Reddit, to hurt other people
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• I'm not into foul language and I definitely don't want to talk to people who swear a lot...
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• I want to meet assertive people who know what they want and always stand up for their friends
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• I want to meet someone willing to call me In the future, someone spontaneously sending me pictures of animals or food, et cetera. I want more than just text conversations.. 🌻
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Why can’t you see any of my hobbies listed down below? Because what really matters to me is..who you are (If you’re honest, talkative ,understanding, caring and trustworthy – for example) just simply – It matters to me what you’re like! not what you like.Don’t get me wrong – you can tell me what your hobbies are but from my point of view - people's hobbies are important - If you want to find a gaming buddy or If you want to meet someone to hang out with in real life and..go bowling for example.What most people seem to care about are other people's passions – I don’t. I get along with other people despite having completely different hobbies but I absolutely don’t get along with people way different than me (different expectations and outlook on life – way different sense of humor or personality traits – It’s just an example) It doesn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to me If you're a gamer or? Someone interested in photography! It doesn't make any difference - > as long as you're talkative and kind and If you also want to find someone willing to stay in your life..for good - But If you're into small talk and all you want is to...type and receive super short messages or If you're here only because you're bored and don't know what to do + If you're a very sarcastic person - I'm definitely not for you! I don't get along with overly sarcastic people turning everything into a joke. Friendships should be natural – not forced. I wouldn't get along with people who laugh at everything.. In my opinion most people are way too sarcastic.. It's quite sad... Sarcasm can also be another form of passive-aggressive behavior.
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People who want to be to friends should feel comfortable and have something in common. No - not necessarily a similar taste in music or movies but something else..Most friendships don't fizzle out because of people not having the same hobbies but..because they just simply have different expectations when It comes to something important.I'm not here out of boredom and trust me - I'm not here to meet as many people as possible.I choose quality over quantity.I highly value myself and my time & Sometimes one person but a person who makes you feel comfortable and understood - is more than enough :) We ALL can choose what kind of people we’d like to talk to and maybe even become really good friends with and I? I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.We all have some expectations after all.I know that people don't have to talk as often as possible in order to become friends but I'm interested only in daily conversations. If you really need someone to talk to due to loneliness and If you have time to talk to me daily (throughout the day and maybe even night) I always make time for others.I'm literally always available.I could even stay up all night long only to talk to someone important to me. I’m ready to commit but only If there’s some chemistry between me and someone else.I don’t do anything forcefully.
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If you want to talk to me tell me your story - tell me why you're here, what kind of friend would you like to meet :) Et cetera.Such messages are way more interesting to me than...someone's long list of hobbies. I know! It's unusual on reddit but I don't make friends based on hobbies..I want to meet someone with the same mindset as mine to finally feel understood and get close to someone new. You can share your problems with me - I absolutely don't mind "complaining" as I've been through a lot in my life.What do people usually tell you when you tell them that something's wrong? "Don't complain" or "Life's not over yet - one day you'll be happy" or "There are worse situations than yours" and..obviously "Find a therapist" Life's not a fairytale and sometimes things don't go as planned.Emotions shouldn't be bottled up.I'm sick of people always telling others "everything's gonna be ok" move on " & more..Trust me people - not everyone wants to hear "Just believe in yourself and everything's gonna be ok" Some people take it as reassurance - but others? They would rather hear something different 🙁Imagine being told that things will be okay, only for them to get worse..Do you guys know why telling someone "everything's gonna be ok" Is wrong? Because you can't see the future.
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You can't guarantee others that one day they'll finally be happy + when It comes to social interactions - We're responsible only for ourselves - not others & as you guys know people let us down quite often (sometimes even when there's no reason) so instead of telling people how they should move on, forget everything and be happy or asking them to find a therapist - be there for them! Always be willing to listen to them If you really like them or want to get to know them & don't suggest everyone in a tough situation to find a therapist because even the best therapist won't ever replace a true friend + It's quite normal to be disappointed If people always do something to hurt you. Sharing your hardships with other people in a very similar situation or exactly the same one - is VERY helpful If the other person understands you & wants to start all over by just letting it all out! Feeling emotional support instead of always hearing some "positive quotes" or someone saying "Stop complaining let's talk about something else - Is very important! "Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. I appreciate sensitive people who always try to understand others. If after hearing a sad story all you want to say is "forget the past and move on" you're not for me. It's important to be a good listener and provide emotional support to others
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Please - If you're a completely different person than the described type of person I'm looking for (If you love abbreviations,If you don't need a stable friendship, If you're sarcastic and quiet) or If you simply disagree with my post - don't force yourself to send me a message.I want my new potential friendship to be natural which is why I want you to contact me only If your needs are the same - I don't want you to pretend someone you're not - only to please me - Pretending to be someone you're not - is the worst.I want to finally be happy again & find someone "always" wanting to talk - sending me random pictures throughout the day - food pictures or pictures of some animals. What is the most important to me? I want to find people who value online friendships as much as they would value real life ones as there's another human being on the other side
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No comments please.Only Private messages and chat requests 🌺
I know It's possible to meet people with exactly the same expectations as mine but It's just not easy because most people are Interested In temporary and entertaining conversations. People like me are just "different" I really want to finally find someone who loves emojis as much as I do.. someone who loves sweet, warm and serious discussions at the same time. Emojis really do - change conversations 😊
submitted by xfallenangelx95 to MeetPeople [link] [comments]
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Hello guys! 🙂 (read everything before you decide to send me a message) Please send me a message ONLY If you're in the same situation and If your expectations are the same as mine.I want to find like minded people from Europe (Why Europe? Read my post to find out) I'm looking for something permanent (remember - you can feel lonely even If you're surrounded by others - If there's no emotional bond) I'm fed up of meeting people who never make time for me & only text me once or twice a week to ask me "what are you up to?" Out of boredom.I don't want to meet people asking others a million of questions like "what's your favorite movie?" Just to give them one word answer and ask them another question "and music? Your favorite song?" I'm looking for something "deeper" & different 🙂
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What kind of friend would I like to find? Someone to talk to on a daily basis - Someone who needs It & wants It just as much as me
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What are my expectations? I would like to meet someone in a similar situation – why? Because I honestly feel like only a person with the same expectations and a similar outlook on life would get along with me & because I feel more comfortable talking to people like me..Friendless people who need a strong bond - people without friends and partners.. Don't get me wrong…Most people deserve to be happy and It's good to have friends but people who have friends or families in real life are usually more focused on them (which is completely understandable) & have less time for others + I simply don't want to be replaced by anyone..I kind of envy people who can call others , true friends given I don't have an emotional bond with any of my acquaintances. Please send me a message only If you're not In a relationship and don't have friends for the same reasons I've already mentioned before
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Whenever I hear that others have friends I simply get sad because (believe it or not) If I had to choose between 20 people to talk to (acquaintances) and one special person - I'd choose that one special person without any hesitation .
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I also want to talk to others every day because..I want to see someone’s effort & be someone's first choice - not another person to have random conversations with..some people ask me "Why do you want to talk to people from Europe?" Well..Because I would like to see someone I'd get along with - In the far future - face to face :) + I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to receive a message - waiting 6 hours to receive a message is more than enough
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I'm by no means criticizing people who don't want to talk to others often / People who really are super busy & People who want to find someone to have unimportant conversations with - I'm aware that not everyone has the same expectations which is why everything you're reading now - is here for a reason :) All I'm suggesting is - I don't want anything temporary and I don't want to be the one always giving more than receiving.Listen people - I used to ignore being..ignored by others..always being just an option to talk to during tough times or moments of boredom.I was too young to realize that I was never important enough for most people that were a part of my life. I don't know who needs to hear this but..No one is too busy to make time for you! People make excuses to avoid others because they prioritize everything and (maybe) everyone..over them. It's true that most people are busy - but It takes only a few seconds to start a conversation (If you're into short messages) and a few minutes (1-10/15) to type a long message . Don't let anyone lie to you.
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Truth is that most people either don't like you enough to make time for you or just simply - feel no need to talk to others often but are they too busy? No..You don't need to send me a message just to ask me and tell me "Do you really want to talk every day? I like long messages but I can't promise to contact you often" If you really are unsure please don't send me a message.I don't need more acquaintances aka people to talk to - occasionally.
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I'm not trying to sound rude but conversations once or twice a week wouldn't be enough for me and I don't need them... Let me tell you one thing – A true friend would never just give up on you for no reason :) It’s always possible to find someone to have a random conversation with – someone willing to send you one message once or twice a week..but..It’s almost impossible to find people willing to make more time for you.
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I’m not asking a busy person to make time for me by changing some plans! Absolutely not! I’m here to find someone who wants to talk daily (throughout the day or maybe even night) of one’s own will.Someone looking for the same kind of connection.Strong friendships are based on mutual support. One of the best things you can do for a friend in need, is just to be there for them when they want to talk.I often see posts from people who always say how friendless they are because they don't feel loved or appreciated by their "friends" remember! A true friend - someone who truly likes you or someone who wants to get to know you - will always find time for you.
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I'm not interested in small talk/short messages - I love long and meaningful conversations. It's so easy to find someone who loves abbreviations and questions like "How are you?" How was your day? Or what are you interested in? But so hard/almost impossible to find a person who knows how to keep a conversation going & show others some effort.Building and maintaining friendships takes time and effort.Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relations with other people.Close friendships are so important to us because they are so difficult to form + Having friends can help you feel as if you belong to something that brings purpose and connection to your life
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• I do NOT respond to any „Hey,hmu” or „u want to talk?” type of messages (super short messages or messages full of abbreviations – I literally can’t stand abbreviations and acronyms in text messages) ALL messages full of abbreviations will immediately be ignored.I also don't like it when people ignore everything I say in private messages just to focus on a random question or? When they start talking only about themselves and don't ever ask me anything. I love conversations with people referring to everything I say...I want everything I say and do - to be reciprocated
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• No NSFW profiles (checking mental health subreddits NOT included as I'm a huge empath and always try to understand others) - Please! I'm not looking for anyone to flirt with and I'm not looking for a partner either. I always check people's profiles (even comment history) - To avoid guys, trying to get inappropriate pictures from adult women or? flirt with them + I don't want to see you with no clothes on so If you're on Reddit only because you want others to see what's underneath your clothes - I'm not for you! I just simply don't want to see any s e x related activity on your profile If you want to talk to me.
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• If both of us (you and I) are from the same country (I live in a non-English speaking country) - I want to communicate with you in our first language! No - Not because I don't understand English - because as you see - I do. Why then? English is simply overrated and people don't appreciate other languages as much as they should. So.. If we're from the same country and you want to talk only in English (which is quite common on reddit) - Talk to someone else. I just don't want to talk to a person from the same country as mine - in a foreign language as It's just something I don't understand even If all you want is to improve your language skills
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• Please only adult people 18-36 (age range) It doesn't matter to me If you're younger or older than me (as long as you're not underage) So.. don't worry! I just want to have discussions with emotionally mature people :)
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• I don’t respond to messages I don’t find interesting even If they're long - If after receiving and reading your message I don't feel comfortable or think "I wouldn't get along with him/her" I simply do not respond (what I’m suggesting is that I don’t always respond to someone’s first or second message because..sometimes you just know If you’d get along with someone or not- I’d never ignore anyone after days or weeks of daily conversations though) just because I don’t want to do anything forcefully & because I don’t want to lead anyone on. I read all messages but I definitely don't respond to all of them! I want to make it clear because I don't want to be accused of not responding and not reading people's messages! - Some people don't message me back as well and even If It's a bit disappointing I'm ok with that! - as long as there's no emotional bond - Not responding to someone's first or second message Is completely OK! If people think they wouldn't get along with a stranger - is there a reason to start a conversation? I don't think so. I can't stand being ignored after days or weeks of daily conversations and seeing people changing priorities over time.. but that's something different - something I don't want to go through ever again for real. If I'm really interested in someone's message it's impossible to hear from me "I'm too busy" because I know myself and If I had no time for others - I wouldn't be here. I don't want to pretend someone I'm not and always try to find some cheap excuses to avoid others. (unlike most people who don't want to talk to others)
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• Don’t ask me “Can you tell me something about yourself?” If you really want to get to know me - you can ask me questions :) I'm an open book.
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• It would be better If you guys were into emojis - like me - to describe your emotions In text messages. Two emojis - 🙂 and 🙁 are completely enough! I just don't like emotionless conversations.I also don't like it when people say "yeah" or yea"as it sounds dismissively. First impression Is everything to me! I want to see your kindness even in a text message - Emojis are very helpful to express your emotions.I don't want to meet people who say "crying Is a weakness" - It's OK to cry even If you're a guy!
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• I want to talk on reddit first (just to make sure If I'd get along with you) before moving to Discord or some other app
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• I would rather talk to a homebody - not another person who always has something to do as people who are very busy don't even have time for daily conversations
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• If you're another person interested only in "childish conversations" such as "HEYOOO! I'M BORED! Ya like Pizza or cheese? xDDDD 🤣" I'm begging you! Don't send me a message.I'm not a child anymore and such messages don't make me smile or laugh.I'm looking for someone interested In serious discussions - not another person just seeking some entertainment out of boredom . Conversations with sarcastic undertones (even when It comes to some emojis such as 🤣😂) are not for me. Your typing style matters to me! Why? when It comes to online conversations with someone new - It's not always possible to know If someone Is laughing at you.. or with you. Let me tell you something else! Jokes about cancer, disabilities and death are UNACCEPTABLE to me. If you find joy In someone else's misfortune you are not a person I want to know.
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• Time response matters to me a lot! I would never ask anyone to be online all day long and I'm NOT asking any of you for any instant messaging as I'm someone who would rather wait an hour or two to receive a proper response instead of some short and pointless messages but I'm interested only in daily conversations and I don't want to wait any longer than 6 hours to get a message from you.I don't need unbelievably long messages either! Messages as long as the second paragraph of my post - are completely enough. If you like longer messages? you can send me a longer message, but If you want to send me one word or one sentence as a response to my post - don't expect a reaction from me. I don't want to come across as rude - I just don't want to waste your time
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• I'm strongly AGAINST picking on people you don't even want to chat with - and making fun of them! I can't stand people who criticize others publicly or make fun of them! (only because they disagree with someone they don't even know) There's no place In my life for someone using Reddit, to hurt other people
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• I'm not into foul language and I definitely don't want to talk to people who swear a lot...
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• I want to meet assertive people who know what they want and always stand up for their friends
🤍
• I want to meet someone willing to call me In the future, someone spontaneously sending me pictures of animals or food, et cetera. I want more than just text conversations.. 🌻
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Why can’t you see any of my hobbies listed down below? Because what really matters to me is..who you are (If you’re honest, talkative ,understanding, caring and trustworthy – for example) just simply – It matters to me what you’re like! not what you like.Don’t get me wrong – you can tell me what your hobbies are but from my point of view - people's hobbies are important - If you want to find a gaming buddy or If you want to meet someone to hang out with in real life and..go bowling for example.What most people seem to care about are other people's passions – I don’t. I get along with other people despite having completely different hobbies but I absolutely don’t get along with people way different than me (different expectations and outlook on life – way different sense of humor or personality traits – It’s just an example) It doesn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to me If you're a gamer or? Someone interested in photography! It doesn't make any difference - > as long as you're talkative and kind and If you also want to find someone willing to stay in your life..for good - But If you're into small talk and all you want is to...type and receive super short messages or If you're here only because you're bored and don't know what to do + If you're a very sarcastic person - I'm definitely not for you! I don't get along with overly sarcastic people turning everything into a joke. Friendships should be natural – not forced. I wouldn't get along with people who laugh at everything.. In my opinion most people are way too sarcastic.. It's quite sad... Sarcasm can also be another form of passive-aggressive behavior.
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People who want to be to friends should feel comfortable and have something in common. No - not necessarily a similar taste in music or movies but something else..Most friendships don't fizzle out because of people not having the same hobbies but..because they just simply have different expectations when It comes to something important.I'm not here out of boredom and trust me - I'm not here to meet as many people as possible.I choose quality over quantity.I highly value myself and my time & Sometimes one person but a person who makes you feel comfortable and understood - is more than enough :) We ALL can choose what kind of people we’d like to talk to and maybe even become really good friends with and I? I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.We all have some expectations after all.I know that people don't have to talk as often as possible in order to become friends but I'm interested only in daily conversations. If you really need someone to talk to due to loneliness and If you have time to talk to me daily (throughout the day and maybe even night) I always make time for others.I'm literally always available.I could even stay up all night long only to talk to someone important to me. I’m ready to commit but only If there’s some chemistry between me and someone else.I don’t do anything forcefully.
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If you want to talk to me tell me your story - tell me why you're here, what kind of friend would you like to meet :) Et cetera.Such messages are way more interesting to me than...someone's long list of hobbies. I know! It's unusual on reddit but I don't make friends based on hobbies..I want to meet someone with the same mindset as mine to finally feel understood and get close to someone new. You can share your problems with me - I absolutely don't mind "complaining" as I've been through a lot in my life.What do people usually tell you when you tell them that something's wrong? "Don't complain" or "Life's not over yet - one day you'll be happy" or "There are worse situations than yours" and..obviously "Find a therapist" Life's not a fairytale and sometimes things don't go as planned.Emotions shouldn't be bottled up.I'm sick of people always telling others "everything's gonna be ok" move on " & more..Trust me people - not everyone wants to hear "Just believe in yourself and everything's gonna be ok" Some people take it as reassurance - but others? They would rather hear something different 🙁Imagine being told that things will be okay, only for them to get worse..Do you guys know why telling someone "everything's gonna be ok" Is wrong? Because you can't see the future.
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You can't guarantee others that one day they'll finally be happy + when It comes to social interactions - We're responsible only for ourselves - not others & as you guys know people let us down quite often (sometimes even when there's no reason) so instead of telling people how they should move on, forget everything and be happy or asking them to find a therapist - be there for them! Always be willing to listen to them If you really like them or want to get to know them & don't suggest everyone in a tough situation to find a therapist because even the best therapist won't ever replace a true friend + It's quite normal to be disappointed If people always do something to hurt you. Sharing your hardships with other people in a very similar situation or exactly the same one - is VERY helpful If the other person understands you & wants to start all over by just letting it all out! Feeling emotional support instead of always hearing some "positive quotes" or someone saying "Stop complaining let's talk about something else - Is very important! "Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. I appreciate sensitive people who always try to understand others. If after hearing a sad story all you want to say is "forget the past and move on" you're not for me. It's important to be a good listener and provide emotional support to others
★
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Please - If you're a completely different person than the described type of person I'm looking for (If you love abbreviations,If you don't need a stable friendship, If you're sarcastic and quiet) or If you simply disagree with my post - don't force yourself to send me a message.I want my new potential friendship to be natural which is why I want you to contact me only If your needs are the same - I don't want you to pretend someone you're not - only to please me - Pretending to be someone you're not - is the worst.I want to finally be happy again & find someone "always" wanting to talk - sending me random pictures throughout the day - food pictures or pictures of some animals. What is the most important to me? I want to find people who value online friendships as much as they would value real life ones as there's another human being on the other side
★
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No comments please.Only Private messages and chat requests 🌺
I know It's possible to meet people with exactly the same expectations as mine but It's just not easy because most people are Interested In temporary and entertaining conversations. People like me are just "different" I really want to finally find someone who loves emojis as much as I do.. someone who loves sweet, warm and serious discussions at the same time. Emojis really do - change conversations 😊
2024.06.01 15:29 PhilAceAston Tony Martin Talks About Black Sabbath, The Anno Domini Box Set & What Might Happen Next!
Phil Aston: Hello and welcome to the Now Spinning Magazine podcast with me, Phil Aston. And in this episode, I’m absolutely delighted to have with me Tony Martin, one of the UK’s most underrated rock vocalists. You’ve had a really varied career, but what we’re going to talk about today specifically is Black Sabbath and the new “Anno Domini” box set. So, welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine
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Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine
2024.06.01 15:24 LordChozo Chronicles of a Prolific Gamer - May 2024
May got out to a lightning start for me, continuing the torrid April pace for a while before cooling off a bit in the back end of the month. That's partially by design, as I jumped into a pair of longer games (one enormously so) which I won't finish until deeper into June, but I've also noticed I'm slowly bleeding gaming time from my evenings. As my kids get incrementally older and the days grow incrementally longer entering summer, an hour that would previously be my own is now deferred to them, and that adds up over the course of an entire month.
Not that I'd trade my kids, you understand.
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
#27 - Contra: Hard Corps - GEN - 8/10 (Great)
It's been fascinating to watch the Contra series evolve over time, and Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis is no different. With no Mode 7 (the SNES' proprietary isometric viewpoint mode) available on the system, necessarily some of the top down content from Contra III would need to be altered or removed, and that begged the question of what would take its place: after all, a return to basic sidescrolling action might feel like a big step down, and we can't have that. So I think I expected Hard Corps to throw in a new wrinkle to keep the formula a bit more fresh. What I did not expect was for it to make three enormous changes.
For one, Hard Corps has four different characters to choose from, and each is actually unique. It's not just the look - where else can you play a cybernetic wolfman? - but they've got different sizes and hurtboxes as well. And while each starts with the same basic low power machine gun, each has a completely different loadout of possible weapon upgrades, ensuring that all four play very differently from one another outside of the fundamentals of movement. To that end, the two weapon toggle of Contra III is expanded in Hard Corps, allowing you to hold all four of your upgraded weapons simultaneously and switch between them at will, which adds a new layer of depth and strategy to the action. Building upon this notion of enhanced player choice even further, the second big change is that the game has branching paths. After the first stage you make a choice that determines where you head for the second level, and then later on you make another choice that creates further divergence, such that the game has four main endings (and a secret fifth!), all with their own dedicated unique stages. It's for that reason possibly the most replayable game so far in the franchise; I myself did a run through of each ending using a different character per run to get a feel for them all.
This leads to the final big change, which is the only one I don't regard a resounding success: the entire game is basically a boss rush. Let's zero in on the main path that I followed on my primary playthrough and add up all mini-bosses and full boss phases. What number might you expect that to come out as? A dozen or so? Well, sorry about your naiveté, but the answer is 43: it's bosses all the way down. This is a MUCH more mentally taxing load than previous Contra games where you could kind of skate through the non-boss sections with good fundamentals. And that's just one of four possible paths through the game! It's absurd! It's also way more fun than it sounds it would be from the description, but I've heard people say Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game and now I know why. I do miss just running and gunning and dropping dudes in one hit before a thrilling finale; it's hard to be properly wowed by a boss fight when that's all you ever see. But nevertheless Contra: Hard Corps is lives up to the legacy of greatness the franchise had up until that point established...just steel yourself mentally for the extensive memorization it requires of you.
#28 - Ancient Enemy - PC - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
Solitaire is one of those games that nobody really wants to play. It’s a game of convenience and opportunity, only attractive in the absence of something better, which is to say “nearly anything else at all.” Slightly more entertaining are variations on the form, such as Mahjong Solitaire or Free Cell, where certain cards/tiles are locked until the ones above them have been cleared away. These are still just time wasting games for people with nothing else to do, but when presented as a discrete set of challenges there’s a bit more appeal. Do you know they say that every one of the 32,000 numbered games of FreeCell on classic Windows operating systems was supposedly beatable? Did you know a very bored teenage me once decided to see if I could prove it by playing and beating every single unique game of FreeCell in order? I got into the low 30s or so before I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life and wisely moved on.
Well, Ancient Enemy is a game for people with nothing better to do, masquerading as a game that would qualify as "something better to do." It’s an RPG, I guess, but the gameplay revolves entirely around a solitaire variant. You have a deck of “stock cards” numbered 0-9 and start each encounter (“hand”) by flipping the top one. Then on the board you have to collect a card with a number adjacent to the one you’re displaying - 0 serving as a bridge between 1 and 9. Getting a card reveals any card trapped immediately below it and enables that card to be collected as well. If you can’t make a move, you can flip a new stock card over to get a random new number until your deck runs out. Some levels are simple puzzles in this vein, trying to clear all the cards from the board. Most encounters though are battles, where you do the exact same thing, except the color of the card you collect enables you to attack, defend, or cast a spell. So it’s turn-based combat, except each turn is you basically clearing as many cards as you can from the board to juice up your attack or bolster your defense, and that’s about it.
Now, at first, this is actually way more fun than I’m making it sound. I mean, I like solitaire type games for what they are, and the extra mechanics definitely do enrich the experience. You get consumable wild cards, battle boards have bonus cards with instant benefits, you get powers that manipulate the board, new types of cards appear, all good stuff. The problem is that the game completely runs out of these new ideas about a quarter of the way through, at which point you’re just going through the motions until the end, accompanied by a complete nothing of a story that I was confident I had figured out, only to find that the ending was somehow worse than the cliche I’d been anticipating. Thus, the game sadly settled into that exact same niche of games it was supposed to improve upon and supplant. Which I suppose is ok…if you’ve got nothing better to do.
#29 - Snakebird Primer - PC - 7/10 (Good)
I follow a general rule of always playing game franchises in order, but Snakebird Primer is a unique case wherein the developers of the original Snakebird decided that it was too off-putting to new players, and so they made a sequel that they explicitly wanted newcomers to play first. A "primer" in truth to ease you into the overall Snakebird challenge, as it were. So when I decided to check out Snakebird, I thought all right: just this once I'll do it your way.
So how does Snakebird Primer shake out? Well...it's fine. It's a jaunty kind of puzzle game, with bright colors, friendly art and music, and general good vibes. In each stage you control one or more segmented "snakebirds" and have to get them all to the rainbow portal to complete the level. Sometimes you need to eat fruit to open the portal as well, but that's the entire game in a nutshell. It's a very simple concept, complicated only by the fact that a snakebird that has no body segments touching the ground will fall, and so each stage is a kind of pathing challenge, tasking you to figure out the right order of operations to reach the end. The levels are very well paced and designed if you just go in order: there aren't any hand-holdy tutorials, but new ideas are introduced organically at various intervals, and the challenge always feels reasonable, especially because you can undo any number of moves at will, like stepping through code to find an error.
There is, however, a significant difficulty spike for the last couple levels, which is pretty jarring. And when you add to that the fact that the designer of Baba Is You said he built a lot of his design philosophy around the original Snakebird, I've got to admit I'm a lot less keen on checking that one out. It's in that same realm of "enter these six dozen commands in precisely the right order" that made Baba Is You eventually feel more tedious and frustrating to me than anything else, so I think for now I'm happy to have just played the "lite" version instead.
#30 - It Takes Two - PS4 - 8.5/10 (Excellent)
When trying to write down a genre for It Takes Two in my tracking spreadsheet, I wanted to put "Yes". It's as though the developers wanted to make a bunch of different kinds of games and, rather than accepting any limitations (self-imposed or otherwise), they just found a way to do it all at once. It Takes Two is a platformer. It's a third-person shooter. It's a puzzle game. It's a rhythm game. It's a racing game. It's a stealth game. It's a boss battling action adventure. It's a minigame collection. It's a romantic comedy. It's an exploration playground. One minute you're flying around on a jetpack chucking Captain America shields at devils and the next you're literally playing a timed game of chess. None of the things that It Takes Two does would be characterized as masterpiece forms of their respective genres, but that's not the point. There's sufficient depth and development of each mechanic that it never feels like a lazy tack-on to check a box - and that in itself is beyond impressive - but it's the sheer number of different ideas tossed into this package that make it truly special.
It's hard for me to even review this game, frankly. Part of that is because I feel a strong bias towards the game for the audaciousness of what it tries to achieve, and for the way it inspires me to keep stretching myself in new ways however I can. But it's also hard because I don't remember the whole thing. It Takes Two is both fresh in memory, having just finished it, and yet far away and mingled in my mind with similar bits of similar other adventures (Tearaway foremost among them). Why is that? Well, I first booted up It Takes Two in May of 2022 as a co-op experience to share with my wife - quite fitting, as it turns out, given the nature of the game's plot of trying to reconcile an embattled couple. We'd only play in smaller bursts of 1-2 hours at a time, but every session we played it felt like we were playing a new, different game. Music to my ears, but much harder on my gaming-challenged wife, who took longer to adjust to each mechanical shift. Pretty soon we were playing less and less often, even as I was playing a game like Tearaway early on that occupied some similar design space in my head. Soon we stopped playing at all. When I tried to suggest resuming this title over the past year, I was repeatedly rebuffed until finally a month ago I managed to wear her down enough that we picked it up again for about an hour a week. So it is that the first half of the game is fuzzy and nebulous to me, even as I recall that I loved playing, whereas the back half is much fresher, and it's nigh impossible for me to separate my wife's frequent frustrations from my own experience - especially since I've been playing on a controller experiencing heavy stick drift, so managing the camera was a nightmare through no fault of the game's.
All that said, how could I not recommend this game? It's best played with two experienced gamers, but the story only fully lands if you play as a couple, so there's a bit of potential for a disconnect there, as I experienced. It's not a perfect game. But it is an incredibly ambitious one that had me routinely grinning from ear to ear, despite the grumblings on the couch next to me. When I pointed out to my wife that we finished the game in May 2024, almost to the day when we started back in '22, she said "They should've called it It Takes Two Years." We're both glad it's over, but I think for very different reasons.
#31 - Rogue Legacy 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)
Some game sequels try to really shake things up and try something different from the one before. Final Fantasy is probably the biggest and most obvious example of this, but you can also see it in virtually every Super Mario Bros. game, in the Castlevania series, and the list goes on extensively from there. On the other hand, some game sequels treat their predecessors like rough drafts to be perfected. With these, the idea is to take the vision for the previous game, use the increase in time/budget/developer expertise now available, and try to execute on it more completely than was possible before. When a game like this is successful, there becomes almost zero reason to ever play the original game (other than possibly its story), because the new version has replaced it entirely as the definitive experience.
Rogue Legacy 2 is one of these latter types of games. Everything from the first game is pretty much still there (bosses excepted): enemies, basic combat and room design, character classes, traits, progression, etc. It immediately feels like "Hey, I've played this before," yet a cursory look reveals a huge wealth of additional content over the first game. Classes are better differentiated, you get new weapons, more spells, special abilities, new items, new upgrades, new explorable regions, new mechanics, new new new. It truly is a total replacement for Rogue Legacy 1 in this regard, a "go ahead and uninstall that thing forever because we've got it all right here and then some" type of mission statement. I was amazed at how I kept finding ever more avenues of progression and discovery, even many hours into the game, In fact, I never did manage to play as every class, and each class has a variant form as well, most of which I didn't even unlock. It's overflowing with stuff.
And I think that's why it didn't work quite as well for me as the first game: it's all too much. Now there are four different types of currency, all acquired in different ways, all for different upgrade paths. You're always competing with yourself on what to level up between runs because there are too many choices and all of them seem pretty good, but as you're finding your early groove the game throws a big wrench in there: labor costs. While each upgrade has a set gold cost that increases as you level it up, early on the game adds a universal tax mechanic to the entire upgrade tree, making it increasingly prohibitive to spend your money on stuff, and it feels awful. Rogue Legacy 1 had a similar system where each upgrade cost 10g more than the previous, but in the sequel these escalate far more rapidly, to the point where you'll complete a huge run and still feel like you can only afford one or two upgrades that barely move the needle. It's a pure inflationary grinding system meant to pad playtime, and I'm not about that. I played RL1 through multiple New Game + levels, but I was thrilled to beat RL2's final boss and move on because the economy is so frustrating. Other than that though, it's got quite a lot going for it.
#32 - Undertale - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
When is some information too much information? Undertale is notorious for its rabid fan community insisting that there is only one "right" way to play the game, and so if you've ever heard of Undertale there's a good chance you already know what that preferred method is: pacifism. Undertale takes a unique approach to the JRPG in two primary ways: first, that defending against enemy attacks is an active system pretty much akin to dodging in a bullet hell game, and second that you almost never actually need to choose the "Fight" command from the battle menu in order to succeed in an encounter. The argument from the community is that you must play in this fully pacifist manner, largely because of a design decision that thoroughly punishes players who do not, only revealed after the game's conclusion. Thus, these players are "helping" curious newcomers by saving them from falling victim to a fairly vindictive design choice that would create a lot of frustration.
The problem with that approach is that Undertale makes it abundantly clear from the outset that you have the option for these alternative combat approaches, trains you on how to use them, and then gives you a positive feedback loop for choosing that direction with your gameplay. Which means the discourse surrounding this game effectively undermines not only the game's own ability to surprise and educate you, but also the authorial intent of that same design decision, which in context is a conscious player decision to go against the grain and suffer the possible consequences of doing so. In short, I wish I'd never heard of Undertale before I played it, as I'm sure I would've had a much better time.
As it stands, Undertale is still a highly creative take on the genre that, despite an aesthetic I didn't care for and writing that leaned a bit too hard at times into "lol I'm so random" territory for my tastes, still managed to get me invested with some of its characters and even make me laugh aloud at times. I was particularly impressed with that aforementioned approach to combat, as each enemy introduced unique hazards to avoid, so fighting a new monster was far more exciting here than in a standard turn-based RPG where the only meaningful question is "How much damage did this whatever move do to me?" So for those reasons I applaud Undertale. Even still, there's a lot of walking back and forth with no major purpose beyond "it was decided the game should be a little bit inconvenient here," adding some unnecessary tedium to the mix. In short, Undertale's a generally good time, but if you want it to be even better, just pretend you haven't read anything I just said.
#33 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5 - 7.5/10 (Solid)
2018 was a big year for Miles Morales. In the fall he showed up in the PS4 title Marvel's Spider-Man as a major supporting character, and by the end of the year he was stunning cinema audiences in the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the primary protagonist. It's no surprise then that by 2020, with his brand so hot, Sony and Insomniac Games would cash in with a follow-up title to the hit PS4 game with Miles front and center. And for the most part, the game is what you'd expect it to be from that basic pitch: more of the same from 2018, only focusing on Miles' family, his new home of Harlem and its people, and his path to becoming a fully fledged hero in his own right. That's all fine, but here's the problem: all of it has been done better before, and recently to boot. Miles' story of personal growth and family drama was handled better in the Spider-Verse series, even though MSM:MM wisely walks chooses to walk some different beats along the way. "Superhero of Harlem" was done masterfully by Netflix with the Luke Cage series (the first season, at least) back in 2016, and MSM:MM doesn't even try to address any issues beyond the most surface level. And the "more of the same" gameplay?
Well, admittedly that's still pretty good. Web swinging is as fun as ever to the point that there's an XP challenge to web swing at high speed for a full cumulative hour of real time and I caught myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." There are fast travel points that unlock relatively early on, but the joy of traversal feels like the main point of the game, so why would you bother? Miles also gets some new Spidey moves related to his bio-electric powers, and these are really fun and impactful to pull off, such that "more of the same" isn't in this case a damning phrase. And yet, it's also distinctly not "more, but better." In order to emphasize your new powers, the goons you fight (now including women for the first time I can recall ever seeing in a superhero game like this) have upgraded their own abilities as well, which means the simple pleasure of chaining big combos is a bit diminished. Maybe this enemy just blocks all your basic attacks and stops you cold. Maybe this one turns the tables to dodge and counter you. Or maybe you're just constantly surrounded by a flood of dudes with guns and rocket launchers and you feel like you never get a chance to press "punch" without being thoroughly punished.
Now add to that the game's relatively brief length and general lack of meaningful activities compared to its predecessor, as well as its truly awful villains and the ho-hum plot that they service, and you've got a title that's decidedly a step back from what came before. Of course, what came before was excellent, so even a step back still lands you in territory that's quite fun to play around with. My 6-year-old summed it up best when he came downstairs to ask me a question one day and caught me playing: "Whoa...how are you Spider-Man?!" Which is to say that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that really makes you feel like a wannabe Spider-Man who hasn't gotten it all figured out just yet. And I guess that's all right.
Coming in June:
submitted by LordChozo to patientgamers [link] [comments]
Not that I'd trade my kids, you understand.
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
#27 - Contra: Hard Corps - GEN - 8/10 (Great)
It's been fascinating to watch the Contra series evolve over time, and Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis is no different. With no Mode 7 (the SNES' proprietary isometric viewpoint mode) available on the system, necessarily some of the top down content from Contra III would need to be altered or removed, and that begged the question of what would take its place: after all, a return to basic sidescrolling action might feel like a big step down, and we can't have that. So I think I expected Hard Corps to throw in a new wrinkle to keep the formula a bit more fresh. What I did not expect was for it to make three enormous changes.
For one, Hard Corps has four different characters to choose from, and each is actually unique. It's not just the look - where else can you play a cybernetic wolfman? - but they've got different sizes and hurtboxes as well. And while each starts with the same basic low power machine gun, each has a completely different loadout of possible weapon upgrades, ensuring that all four play very differently from one another outside of the fundamentals of movement. To that end, the two weapon toggle of Contra III is expanded in Hard Corps, allowing you to hold all four of your upgraded weapons simultaneously and switch between them at will, which adds a new layer of depth and strategy to the action. Building upon this notion of enhanced player choice even further, the second big change is that the game has branching paths. After the first stage you make a choice that determines where you head for the second level, and then later on you make another choice that creates further divergence, such that the game has four main endings (and a secret fifth!), all with their own dedicated unique stages. It's for that reason possibly the most replayable game so far in the franchise; I myself did a run through of each ending using a different character per run to get a feel for them all.
This leads to the final big change, which is the only one I don't regard a resounding success: the entire game is basically a boss rush. Let's zero in on the main path that I followed on my primary playthrough and add up all mini-bosses and full boss phases. What number might you expect that to come out as? A dozen or so? Well, sorry about your naiveté, but the answer is 43: it's bosses all the way down. This is a MUCH more mentally taxing load than previous Contra games where you could kind of skate through the non-boss sections with good fundamentals. And that's just one of four possible paths through the game! It's absurd! It's also way more fun than it sounds it would be from the description, but I've heard people say Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game and now I know why. I do miss just running and gunning and dropping dudes in one hit before a thrilling finale; it's hard to be properly wowed by a boss fight when that's all you ever see. But nevertheless Contra: Hard Corps is lives up to the legacy of greatness the franchise had up until that point established...just steel yourself mentally for the extensive memorization it requires of you.
#28 - Ancient Enemy - PC - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
Solitaire is one of those games that nobody really wants to play. It’s a game of convenience and opportunity, only attractive in the absence of something better, which is to say “nearly anything else at all.” Slightly more entertaining are variations on the form, such as Mahjong Solitaire or Free Cell, where certain cards/tiles are locked until the ones above them have been cleared away. These are still just time wasting games for people with nothing else to do, but when presented as a discrete set of challenges there’s a bit more appeal. Do you know they say that every one of the 32,000 numbered games of FreeCell on classic Windows operating systems was supposedly beatable? Did you know a very bored teenage me once decided to see if I could prove it by playing and beating every single unique game of FreeCell in order? I got into the low 30s or so before I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life and wisely moved on.
Well, Ancient Enemy is a game for people with nothing better to do, masquerading as a game that would qualify as "something better to do." It’s an RPG, I guess, but the gameplay revolves entirely around a solitaire variant. You have a deck of “stock cards” numbered 0-9 and start each encounter (“hand”) by flipping the top one. Then on the board you have to collect a card with a number adjacent to the one you’re displaying - 0 serving as a bridge between 1 and 9. Getting a card reveals any card trapped immediately below it and enables that card to be collected as well. If you can’t make a move, you can flip a new stock card over to get a random new number until your deck runs out. Some levels are simple puzzles in this vein, trying to clear all the cards from the board. Most encounters though are battles, where you do the exact same thing, except the color of the card you collect enables you to attack, defend, or cast a spell. So it’s turn-based combat, except each turn is you basically clearing as many cards as you can from the board to juice up your attack or bolster your defense, and that’s about it.
Now, at first, this is actually way more fun than I’m making it sound. I mean, I like solitaire type games for what they are, and the extra mechanics definitely do enrich the experience. You get consumable wild cards, battle boards have bonus cards with instant benefits, you get powers that manipulate the board, new types of cards appear, all good stuff. The problem is that the game completely runs out of these new ideas about a quarter of the way through, at which point you’re just going through the motions until the end, accompanied by a complete nothing of a story that I was confident I had figured out, only to find that the ending was somehow worse than the cliche I’d been anticipating. Thus, the game sadly settled into that exact same niche of games it was supposed to improve upon and supplant. Which I suppose is ok…if you’ve got nothing better to do.
#29 - Snakebird Primer - PC - 7/10 (Good)
I follow a general rule of always playing game franchises in order, but Snakebird Primer is a unique case wherein the developers of the original Snakebird decided that it was too off-putting to new players, and so they made a sequel that they explicitly wanted newcomers to play first. A "primer" in truth to ease you into the overall Snakebird challenge, as it were. So when I decided to check out Snakebird, I thought all right: just this once I'll do it your way.
So how does Snakebird Primer shake out? Well...it's fine. It's a jaunty kind of puzzle game, with bright colors, friendly art and music, and general good vibes. In each stage you control one or more segmented "snakebirds" and have to get them all to the rainbow portal to complete the level. Sometimes you need to eat fruit to open the portal as well, but that's the entire game in a nutshell. It's a very simple concept, complicated only by the fact that a snakebird that has no body segments touching the ground will fall, and so each stage is a kind of pathing challenge, tasking you to figure out the right order of operations to reach the end. The levels are very well paced and designed if you just go in order: there aren't any hand-holdy tutorials, but new ideas are introduced organically at various intervals, and the challenge always feels reasonable, especially because you can undo any number of moves at will, like stepping through code to find an error.
There is, however, a significant difficulty spike for the last couple levels, which is pretty jarring. And when you add to that the fact that the designer of Baba Is You said he built a lot of his design philosophy around the original Snakebird, I've got to admit I'm a lot less keen on checking that one out. It's in that same realm of "enter these six dozen commands in precisely the right order" that made Baba Is You eventually feel more tedious and frustrating to me than anything else, so I think for now I'm happy to have just played the "lite" version instead.
#30 - It Takes Two - PS4 - 8.5/10 (Excellent)
When trying to write down a genre for It Takes Two in my tracking spreadsheet, I wanted to put "Yes". It's as though the developers wanted to make a bunch of different kinds of games and, rather than accepting any limitations (self-imposed or otherwise), they just found a way to do it all at once. It Takes Two is a platformer. It's a third-person shooter. It's a puzzle game. It's a rhythm game. It's a racing game. It's a stealth game. It's a boss battling action adventure. It's a minigame collection. It's a romantic comedy. It's an exploration playground. One minute you're flying around on a jetpack chucking Captain America shields at devils and the next you're literally playing a timed game of chess. None of the things that It Takes Two does would be characterized as masterpiece forms of their respective genres, but that's not the point. There's sufficient depth and development of each mechanic that it never feels like a lazy tack-on to check a box - and that in itself is beyond impressive - but it's the sheer number of different ideas tossed into this package that make it truly special.
It's hard for me to even review this game, frankly. Part of that is because I feel a strong bias towards the game for the audaciousness of what it tries to achieve, and for the way it inspires me to keep stretching myself in new ways however I can. But it's also hard because I don't remember the whole thing. It Takes Two is both fresh in memory, having just finished it, and yet far away and mingled in my mind with similar bits of similar other adventures (Tearaway foremost among them). Why is that? Well, I first booted up It Takes Two in May of 2022 as a co-op experience to share with my wife - quite fitting, as it turns out, given the nature of the game's plot of trying to reconcile an embattled couple. We'd only play in smaller bursts of 1-2 hours at a time, but every session we played it felt like we were playing a new, different game. Music to my ears, but much harder on my gaming-challenged wife, who took longer to adjust to each mechanical shift. Pretty soon we were playing less and less often, even as I was playing a game like Tearaway early on that occupied some similar design space in my head. Soon we stopped playing at all. When I tried to suggest resuming this title over the past year, I was repeatedly rebuffed until finally a month ago I managed to wear her down enough that we picked it up again for about an hour a week. So it is that the first half of the game is fuzzy and nebulous to me, even as I recall that I loved playing, whereas the back half is much fresher, and it's nigh impossible for me to separate my wife's frequent frustrations from my own experience - especially since I've been playing on a controller experiencing heavy stick drift, so managing the camera was a nightmare through no fault of the game's.
All that said, how could I not recommend this game? It's best played with two experienced gamers, but the story only fully lands if you play as a couple, so there's a bit of potential for a disconnect there, as I experienced. It's not a perfect game. But it is an incredibly ambitious one that had me routinely grinning from ear to ear, despite the grumblings on the couch next to me. When I pointed out to my wife that we finished the game in May 2024, almost to the day when we started back in '22, she said "They should've called it It Takes Two Years." We're both glad it's over, but I think for very different reasons.
#31 - Rogue Legacy 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)
Some game sequels try to really shake things up and try something different from the one before. Final Fantasy is probably the biggest and most obvious example of this, but you can also see it in virtually every Super Mario Bros. game, in the Castlevania series, and the list goes on extensively from there. On the other hand, some game sequels treat their predecessors like rough drafts to be perfected. With these, the idea is to take the vision for the previous game, use the increase in time/budget/developer expertise now available, and try to execute on it more completely than was possible before. When a game like this is successful, there becomes almost zero reason to ever play the original game (other than possibly its story), because the new version has replaced it entirely as the definitive experience.
Rogue Legacy 2 is one of these latter types of games. Everything from the first game is pretty much still there (bosses excepted): enemies, basic combat and room design, character classes, traits, progression, etc. It immediately feels like "Hey, I've played this before," yet a cursory look reveals a huge wealth of additional content over the first game. Classes are better differentiated, you get new weapons, more spells, special abilities, new items, new upgrades, new explorable regions, new mechanics, new new new. It truly is a total replacement for Rogue Legacy 1 in this regard, a "go ahead and uninstall that thing forever because we've got it all right here and then some" type of mission statement. I was amazed at how I kept finding ever more avenues of progression and discovery, even many hours into the game, In fact, I never did manage to play as every class, and each class has a variant form as well, most of which I didn't even unlock. It's overflowing with stuff.
And I think that's why it didn't work quite as well for me as the first game: it's all too much. Now there are four different types of currency, all acquired in different ways, all for different upgrade paths. You're always competing with yourself on what to level up between runs because there are too many choices and all of them seem pretty good, but as you're finding your early groove the game throws a big wrench in there: labor costs. While each upgrade has a set gold cost that increases as you level it up, early on the game adds a universal tax mechanic to the entire upgrade tree, making it increasingly prohibitive to spend your money on stuff, and it feels awful. Rogue Legacy 1 had a similar system where each upgrade cost 10g more than the previous, but in the sequel these escalate far more rapidly, to the point where you'll complete a huge run and still feel like you can only afford one or two upgrades that barely move the needle. It's a pure inflationary grinding system meant to pad playtime, and I'm not about that. I played RL1 through multiple New Game + levels, but I was thrilled to beat RL2's final boss and move on because the economy is so frustrating. Other than that though, it's got quite a lot going for it.
#32 - Undertale - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
When is some information too much information? Undertale is notorious for its rabid fan community insisting that there is only one "right" way to play the game, and so if you've ever heard of Undertale there's a good chance you already know what that preferred method is: pacifism. Undertale takes a unique approach to the JRPG in two primary ways: first, that defending against enemy attacks is an active system pretty much akin to dodging in a bullet hell game, and second that you almost never actually need to choose the "Fight" command from the battle menu in order to succeed in an encounter. The argument from the community is that you must play in this fully pacifist manner, largely because of a design decision that thoroughly punishes players who do not, only revealed after the game's conclusion. Thus, these players are "helping" curious newcomers by saving them from falling victim to a fairly vindictive design choice that would create a lot of frustration.
The problem with that approach is that Undertale makes it abundantly clear from the outset that you have the option for these alternative combat approaches, trains you on how to use them, and then gives you a positive feedback loop for choosing that direction with your gameplay. Which means the discourse surrounding this game effectively undermines not only the game's own ability to surprise and educate you, but also the authorial intent of that same design decision, which in context is a conscious player decision to go against the grain and suffer the possible consequences of doing so. In short, I wish I'd never heard of Undertale before I played it, as I'm sure I would've had a much better time.
As it stands, Undertale is still a highly creative take on the genre that, despite an aesthetic I didn't care for and writing that leaned a bit too hard at times into "lol I'm so random" territory for my tastes, still managed to get me invested with some of its characters and even make me laugh aloud at times. I was particularly impressed with that aforementioned approach to combat, as each enemy introduced unique hazards to avoid, so fighting a new monster was far more exciting here than in a standard turn-based RPG where the only meaningful question is "How much damage did this whatever move do to me?" So for those reasons I applaud Undertale. Even still, there's a lot of walking back and forth with no major purpose beyond "it was decided the game should be a little bit inconvenient here," adding some unnecessary tedium to the mix. In short, Undertale's a generally good time, but if you want it to be even better, just pretend you haven't read anything I just said.
#33 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5 - 7.5/10 (Solid)
2018 was a big year for Miles Morales. In the fall he showed up in the PS4 title Marvel's Spider-Man as a major supporting character, and by the end of the year he was stunning cinema audiences in the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the primary protagonist. It's no surprise then that by 2020, with his brand so hot, Sony and Insomniac Games would cash in with a follow-up title to the hit PS4 game with Miles front and center. And for the most part, the game is what you'd expect it to be from that basic pitch: more of the same from 2018, only focusing on Miles' family, his new home of Harlem and its people, and his path to becoming a fully fledged hero in his own right. That's all fine, but here's the problem: all of it has been done better before, and recently to boot. Miles' story of personal growth and family drama was handled better in the Spider-Verse series, even though MSM:MM wisely walks chooses to walk some different beats along the way. "Superhero of Harlem" was done masterfully by Netflix with the Luke Cage series (the first season, at least) back in 2016, and MSM:MM doesn't even try to address any issues beyond the most surface level. And the "more of the same" gameplay?
Well, admittedly that's still pretty good. Web swinging is as fun as ever to the point that there's an XP challenge to web swing at high speed for a full cumulative hour of real time and I caught myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." There are fast travel points that unlock relatively early on, but the joy of traversal feels like the main point of the game, so why would you bother? Miles also gets some new Spidey moves related to his bio-electric powers, and these are really fun and impactful to pull off, such that "more of the same" isn't in this case a damning phrase. And yet, it's also distinctly not "more, but better." In order to emphasize your new powers, the goons you fight (now including women for the first time I can recall ever seeing in a superhero game like this) have upgraded their own abilities as well, which means the simple pleasure of chaining big combos is a bit diminished. Maybe this enemy just blocks all your basic attacks and stops you cold. Maybe this one turns the tables to dodge and counter you. Or maybe you're just constantly surrounded by a flood of dudes with guns and rocket launchers and you feel like you never get a chance to press "punch" without being thoroughly punished.
Now add to that the game's relatively brief length and general lack of meaningful activities compared to its predecessor, as well as its truly awful villains and the ho-hum plot that they service, and you've got a title that's decidedly a step back from what came before. Of course, what came before was excellent, so even a step back still lands you in territory that's quite fun to play around with. My 6-year-old summed it up best when he came downstairs to ask me a question one day and caught me playing: "Whoa...how are you Spider-Man?!" Which is to say that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that really makes you feel like a wannabe Spider-Man who hasn't gotten it all figured out just yet. And I guess that's all right.
- I've had less time for PC gaming lately for a couple of different reasons, but I'm expecting that to be a temporary thing, and I don't think I'm in danger of failing to finish Mass Effect 3 by the end of June. I didn't realize the version of the game I had included all the DLC. Nor did I actually know what any of the DLC was. So I was quite a ways into the game and feeling great about my progress when I got suspicious that the section I was playing wasn't actually base game content. I looked it up and found that, in fact, about 90% of what I'd played to date was DLC and I'd barely actually started the base game itself. That explains why the main story was taking a while to get off the ground, at any rate.
- Speaking of getting off the ground, my journey through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom began impatiently a few months after release, but I took an extended break from the game and have now spent pretty much all of May continuing my thorough trek through the game world. I'm well over 200 hours into the game and am only several days away from having explored the entirety of the game's map. At which point I believe I'll finally advance the main quest past its initial stage.
- In my review for Rogue Legacy 2 above I mentioned the Castlevania franchise, which I feel I can speak to as a whole given that I've finished nearly every game in the series to date. Unsurprisingly I felt most drawn to the metroidvania style games, so there was a layer of disappointment in exhausting the last of those to discover. Disappointment that will soon be temporarily eradicated when I boot up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, produced by that same creative mind.
- And more...
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2024.06.01 15:23 Part-European-Psycho (M4A) looking for a long term partner + pal!
Hey there, my names Greyson and I’m a 17 year old high school grad! First off, as I’m 17 (turning 18 and in a few weeks) please be within the age range of 17-19! I really would rather be friends and write with fellas around my age, no exceptions
Anyways if you made it past that little roadblock here’s an introductory type thing:
submitted by Part-European-Psycho to Roleplay [link] [comments]
Anyways if you made it past that little roadblock here’s an introductory type thing:
- I’m a guy but I DONT care what your identity is as long as you’re cool
- I’m in the CST time zone and I BEG you are also near that, it’s so much harder for me to talk to people in other time zones
- I have a part time job, but other than that I’m about as chronically online as possible
- I love talking about random stuff, but I struggle with texting first anxiety when I’m just getting to know you so bare with me! So OOC is a huge must for me, be friendly and be silly
- I’m autistic (doesn’t really matter but Yknow whatever)
- I draw as much as I can and would 100% be down for drawing our guys doing silly stuff, that’s like the best part of this. ALSO I do have an example of my art on my profile! I swear it’s literally a scroll down, so please do check it out you will get a feel for the sort of characters I create
- I only write on discord and in 3rd person when roleplaying
- I only main male characters, though for side characters I can write any gender! I only ask that you are fine with writing side characters as well
- On that note I am fine with any MxF/MxM pairing, whatever! At the moment I am leaning towards M4M, but I go either way
- Please be fairly literate, I love writing a lot- sometimes from 4-6 paragraphs. I ask that you can do the same when a situation calls for it
- I’m a huge history geek especially in the time periods of the 1800s-1980s, anything from cowboys to yuppies is my jam
- Supernatural elements are always welcome! I don’t require that at all, but I’m always down for something unique
- I’m a horror buff so I’d love that sort of element. I’m fine with natural horror (my favorite honestly) or supernatural like mentioned above ^
- I love any sort of action or conflict imaginable, the crazier and scarier the better
- Crime and whatnot always interests me, it’s part of my major
- Romance is cool, but what’s really cool to me is a slow burn enemies to lovers type beat. And I mean REAL enemies cliche, not just mild dislike
- I’m kind of into a lot of stuff that’s hard to put into words so here’s some media that I enjoy: Hannibal both OG and NBC, fear & Hunger (Termina especially), Darkest Dungeons, Yakuza, Dexter, the Mafia trilogy, LA Noire, Pathologic, Disco Elysium, Hotline Miami, Dishonored, any film bro movie, Fallout New Vegas, Bioshock, re just a couple to name a few (please note that I’m not interested in fandom rps, only OCs!)
- Also, I am not very interested in writing/creating teen or young adult characters. I really enjoy giving depth to characters and not basing things off of conventionality. So PLEASE keep this in mind, I know a lot of people aren’t into that but I am
2024.06.01 15:00 AutoModerator r/NewToReddit Monthly Rule Round-up!
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submitted by AutoModerator to NewToReddit [link] [comments]
What's this?
Here's our regular reminder of our rules. We do this to aid new members who perhaps aren't sure how to check for rules yet, just as a general reminder for everyone, and to share any important notes.
Every Subreddit (aka sub or community) has its own rules totally unique to that community. This may seem confusing and frustrating at first, but the rules are there to keep each community on topic, healthy, and a desirable place to be, and they need to be different for different topics; no one wants to be in a sub full of spam or off-topic content for example.
Here's a guide on how to find a subreddits rules.
How to report
If you spot anything you think breaks Reddit's or a community's rules, you can report it. Here's our guide on reporting. :)
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Important notes
Issues:If you have issues with this community or mod actions taken against you here, please modmail us to discuss it with us. We are open to constructive feedback.
Again we ask that should you see anything slip our net, please do report it to help us get to it faster. Thanks to those that are helping out by reporting things already :)
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Our rules
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2024.06.01 14:15 burner48211 Is this a red flag?
I’ve been interviewing with a family I am interested in working with. During the last interview MB mentions that there will be GH but wants to slowly integrate nanny into babies routine (cut hours). That’s okay with me as I would have GH. But she goes on to explain that she wants to reserve the extra GH for travel. The example that was provided was if I work 16 hours one week, I would get paid the full GH. The next week is a travel week and MB wants to use the remaining 14 hours from the previous week GH towards my pay for the travel week. Is this normal or is this a red flag? This doesn’t make sense to me but I’ve been out of nannying for a while.
submitted by burner48211 to Nanny [link] [comments]
2024.06.01 13:53 PuppetMaster000 "Unresponsive" OS button inputs?
Sorry if this is a stupid question as it is nothing game breaking, but it is mildly annoying so I wanted to check if others noticed the same thing.
Sometimes my A button (right button) wouldn't go through when pressed. After several days of testing I finally realized how to replicate it consistently and wondered if anyone else has the same problem.
This happens only in the Pocket OS menu/options, not in games it seems. If I click the d-pad, to go down/up and then quickly press A, the A input would just not register. I am talking about the regular click-click (something like 0.2 seconds apart maybe?), not same time input. If you try press down+A together, then the A input is completely ignored, which is more than likely what is happening here. But it seems like the "lockout" period where the right side buttons are ignored after pressing a direction is a bit longer than I would expect and makes the system feel not as smooth or "responsive".
For example, if I click down from "Play Cartridge" to "Library" and click A, I find myself having to click A again to enter it more often than not. Or if I am in a game through a core and click menu then go down from "Resume" to "Quit" then click A quickly, same thing. It is not exclusive to things you would expect a bit of time to load like Library or openFPGA where it may take a few seconds if you have a lot of cores or games, it is true for any option, with or without an SD card inserted. I tested on two systems and both had this (latest OS).
I tested spamming A and B to enteexit menus, no issues. I also confirmed using the button tester for Pocket that it's showing no issues on chaining the buttons together, everything registers just fine even when pressed simultaneously. If you know what I am talking about, the speed between the presses shows as 0005.
Again, this is nothing major, but wanted to see if this is normal for the OS itself? Does the menu just take a bit specifically between the d-pad and right side buttons?
submitted by PuppetMaster000 to AnaloguePocket [link] [comments]
Sometimes my A button (right button) wouldn't go through when pressed. After several days of testing I finally realized how to replicate it consistently and wondered if anyone else has the same problem.
This happens only in the Pocket OS menu/options, not in games it seems. If I click the d-pad, to go down/up and then quickly press A, the A input would just not register. I am talking about the regular click-click (something like 0.2 seconds apart maybe?), not same time input. If you try press down+A together, then the A input is completely ignored, which is more than likely what is happening here. But it seems like the "lockout" period where the right side buttons are ignored after pressing a direction is a bit longer than I would expect and makes the system feel not as smooth or "responsive".
For example, if I click down from "Play Cartridge" to "Library" and click A, I find myself having to click A again to enter it more often than not. Or if I am in a game through a core and click menu then go down from "Resume" to "Quit" then click A quickly, same thing. It is not exclusive to things you would expect a bit of time to load like Library or openFPGA where it may take a few seconds if you have a lot of cores or games, it is true for any option, with or without an SD card inserted. I tested on two systems and both had this (latest OS).
I tested spamming A and B to enteexit menus, no issues. I also confirmed using the button tester for Pocket that it's showing no issues on chaining the buttons together, everything registers just fine even when pressed simultaneously. If you know what I am talking about, the speed between the presses shows as 0005.
Again, this is nothing major, but wanted to see if this is normal for the OS itself? Does the menu just take a bit specifically between the d-pad and right side buttons?
2024.06.01 13:52 xGentian_violet Are these levels kinda bad or just meh? 24F
24F, BMI low normal. The only cardiac/stroke events in my immediate family were in old age (that i know of). I did 3 fasting lipid panels in the last 6 years: [age 24] / [age 22] / [age 18]
i know a lot of these have a U shaped risk hazard distribution (bad if it's too low, bad if it's too high) and that did cross my mind when looking at my HDL for example, but idk honestly.
Are these most recent levels bad(ish)?
Context:
I'm caring to adjust my lipid profile now because it's coming between me and medical treatment. I wan't to start combined contraceptive use due to menorrhagia/dysmenorhhea with severe iron defienciecy that cannot be corrected orally, and due to PMDD. I know COCs can wreak havoc on the lipid profile, BP and I'll be watching it closely.
My current diet sucks and my aim is to attempt some dietary changes in the direction of a mediterranean diet, though i know i will not be able to just stick to a mediterranean diet unmodified due to FODMAP intolerance.
*I believe it's not unlikely that my triglycerides are artificially lowered by one of my conditions, it's been known to happen.
submitted by xGentian_violet to Cholesterol [link] [comments]
i know a lot of these have a U shaped risk hazard distribution (bad if it's too low, bad if it's too high) and that did cross my mind when looking at my HDL for example, but idk honestly.
Are these most recent levels bad(ish)?
- Triglycerides*: 53.1/34/26 mg/dL
- Total Cholesterol: 220/201/193 mg/dL
- LDL: 116/118/100 mg/dL
- HDL: 93/76/89 mg/dL
- non-HDL: 128/---/--- mg/dL
I'm caring to adjust my lipid profile now because it's coming between me and medical treatment. I wan't to start combined contraceptive use due to menorrhagia/dysmenorhhea with severe iron defienciecy that cannot be corrected orally, and due to PMDD. I know COCs can wreak havoc on the lipid profile, BP and I'll be watching it closely.
My current diet sucks and my aim is to attempt some dietary changes in the direction of a mediterranean diet, though i know i will not be able to just stick to a mediterranean diet unmodified due to FODMAP intolerance.
2024.06.01 13:40 Uptowner26 Recovering from Abusive Bosses
Not sure if this is the right sub for this and I'm a bit embarrassed about how effected I still am from bad bosses but I have a bunch of job related trauma that is related to working for previous abusive bosses and toxic jobs.
Some examples are shouting, throwing things during a temper tantrum, gossiping with other coworkers like they're in high school, no to little training and then getting angry or annoyed when I asked questions after 2 of working there, all kinds of unprofessional behavior, gaslighting, etc...) some of these jobs were short lived retail environments but one was at salaried office job.
Until a few years ago I thought I needed to just put up with abuse and toxicity because that's how bosses and workplaces are and growing up with abusive parents normalized abusive behavior from others as an adult.
Though, after finally speaking with others about this they were shocked by some of my stories. One person even said a former boss of mine was either someone who "had a malignant personality disorder, was on drugs or both." which is validating since I was worried I was being overly sensitive.
I've had some great bosses but toxic jobs/ bad bosses have seemed to have left a lasting damage to where I have CPTSD from these experiences and expect the next job I get to be abusive and toxic. It worsened my depression, made my anxiety worse and my professional confidence/ self worth tanked. I've done some self administered EMDR which has helped a bit with one particularly bad former boss but there's still a lot of work to do before I'm recovered.
I don't even want to apply to jobs and basically have to force myself to apply for positions now resulting in a growing resume gap but that's not an option unless you're wealthy or don't mind starving....
The answer is to probably seek a trauma therapist and career counselor to sort this out but I can't afford either at the moment since I'm currently unemployed.
Has anyone gone through something similar? How did you recover?
submitted by Uptowner26 to CPTSD [link] [comments]
Some examples are shouting, throwing things during a temper tantrum, gossiping with other coworkers like they're in high school, no to little training and then getting angry or annoyed when I asked questions after 2 of working there, all kinds of unprofessional behavior, gaslighting, etc...) some of these jobs were short lived retail environments but one was at salaried office job.
Until a few years ago I thought I needed to just put up with abuse and toxicity because that's how bosses and workplaces are and growing up with abusive parents normalized abusive behavior from others as an adult.
Though, after finally speaking with others about this they were shocked by some of my stories. One person even said a former boss of mine was either someone who "had a malignant personality disorder, was on drugs or both." which is validating since I was worried I was being overly sensitive.
I've had some great bosses but toxic jobs/ bad bosses have seemed to have left a lasting damage to where I have CPTSD from these experiences and expect the next job I get to be abusive and toxic. It worsened my depression, made my anxiety worse and my professional confidence/ self worth tanked. I've done some self administered EMDR which has helped a bit with one particularly bad former boss but there's still a lot of work to do before I'm recovered.
I don't even want to apply to jobs and basically have to force myself to apply for positions now resulting in a growing resume gap but that's not an option unless you're wealthy or don't mind starving....
The answer is to probably seek a trauma therapist and career counselor to sort this out but I can't afford either at the moment since I'm currently unemployed.
Has anyone gone through something similar? How did you recover?
2024.06.01 13:23 Few-Procedure-8324 Hire Gmail Hacker for Ethical Needs
Hire Gmail Hacker for Ethical Needs is an insightful article that delves into the world of ethical hacking, focusing on the unique perspectives of hackers who specialize in Gmail. You will discover how these professionals can help you recover lost passwords, secure your accounts, and investigate potential cyber threats, all while adhering to legal standards and ethical guidelines. The article highlights the skills and expertise of ethical hackers, shedding light on their crucial role in maintaining digital security. With a friendly and approachable tone, the piece offers a deeper understanding of why hiring an ethical Gmail hacker might be the solution you need.
Navigating the world of ethical hacking might seem daunting, but with the right guidance and considerations, you can achieve your goals responsibly and effectively. Remember, the key is to always act ethically and legally while ensuring that your actions respect the privacy and rights of others.
So, the next time you find yourself in need of a Gmail hacker for ethical purposes, you’ll know exactly what to do and what to look for. Good luck, and stay secure!
submitted by Few-Procedure-8324 to AndrewJJake [link] [comments]
Hire Gmail Hacker for Ethical Needs
Have you ever wondered if hiring a hacker for Gmail could be done ethically? It might sound a bit outlandish, but in certain situations, it can be both legal and necessary. This article will guide you through the ins and outs of hiring a Gmail hacker ethically, while retaining your values and adhering to legal guidelines.Understanding the Hacker’s Perspective
Who Are Hackers?
Hackers often get a bad rap. The term "hacker" brings to mind images of people in dark rooms, breaking into systems for nefarious purposes. However, not all hackers are bad. In fact, there are "white hat" hackers who use their skills ethically to help others. These hackers follow the law and adhere to strict ethical guidelines.Ethical Hacking
Ethical hacking is the practice of penetrating systems and networks to spot vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can exploit them. Ethical hackers are skilled professionals who use their knowledge for good. They are often hired by companies to protect sensitive information, ensure security, and train employees on best practices.When Might You Need to Hire a Gmail Hacker?
Forgotten Passwords
One of the most common reasons people consider hiring a Gmail hacker is to recover forgotten passwords. Life is busy, and sometimes we forget the little things, like email passwords. In such cases, an ethical hacker can help you regain access to your account.Security Concerns
Perhaps you suspect your Gmail account has been compromised. In such scenarios, a hacker can help secure your account by identifying any breaches, ensuring that your sensitive information remains safe.Legal Situations
In some legal situations, gaining access to an email account is crucial. For example, in cases involving fraud or embezzlement, an ethical hacker can help retrieve pertinent information that can serve as evidence.Important Considerations Before Hiring a Gmail Hacker
Legal Implications
Before you decide to hire a Gmail hacker, it's crucial to understand the legal boundaries. Unauthorized access to email accounts is illegal and can result in severe penalties. Always opt for ethical hackers who follow legal guidelines.Ethical Boundaries
You must ensure that your actions are ethical. Hire a hacker only if you have legitimate reasons, like recovering your account or ensuring security. Avoid any activities that could harm others or invade their privacy.Verifying Credentials
Not all hackers are trustworthy. Before hiring, do your due diligence. Check their credentials, reviews, and, if possible, get recommendations. Trustworthy ethical hackers often have certifications like Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) or Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP).How to Find an Ethical Gmail Hacker
Online Platforms
Several online platforms connect clients with ethical hackers. Websites like Upwork, Freelancer, and others have dedicated sections for cybersecurity professionals. These platforms usually have reviews and ratings to help you choose the right person.| Platform | Features |
|---|---|
| Upwork | Large community of professionals, reviews and ratings available, detailed profiles |
| Freelancer | Competitive bidding process, wide range of skills, portfolio sections |
| Guru | Strong focus on security professionals, niche market, reviews, and feedback |
Hacker Communities
Hacker communities and forums like Reddit, HackerOne, and Bugcrowd can be excellent places to find ethical hackers. These platforms are often frequented by cybersecurity professionals who are passionate about their work.Referrals
Sometimes, the best way to find a reliable hacker is through referrals. Reach out to friends, colleagues, or professionals in related fields to get recommendations. This ensures that you are hiring someone trustworthy and experienced.What to Expect from an Ethical Gmail Hacker
Initial Consultation
Expect an initial consultation where the hacker assesses your needs and provides a preliminary plan of action. This step usually includes discussions about your goals, any specific concerns you have, and the time frame for the project.Proposal and Agreement
After the consultation, the hacker will present a proposal. This document outlines the scope of work, timelines, and costs. It's crucial to have this outlined in an agreement to protect both parties.Work Process
Most ethical hackers follow a structured work process, which can include the following steps:- Reconnaissance: Gathering information about your Gmail account, such as associated security questions, recovery emails, etc.
- Analysis: Identifying potential vulnerabilities and devising a plan to regain access or enhance security.
- Execution: Implementing the chosen strategies, whether it's password recovery or securing the account.
- Reporting: Providing a detailed report of the steps taken and recommendations for future security.
Follow-Up Support
Good ethical hackers offer follow-up support to ensure that the issue is completely resolved and that you understand any steps you need to take to avoid future problems.Ethical vs. Unethical Hacking: A Comparison
Understanding the distinction between ethical and unethical hacking is crucial. Below is a table that highlights the key differences.| Criteria | Ethical Hacking | Unethical Hacking |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | To identify vulnerabilities, enhance security, or recover lost data | To steal data, cause harm, or gain illegal access |
| Legality | Legal, with consent from the owner | Illegal and punishable by law |
| Approach | Transparent, follows a structured process | Secretive, often deceptive |
| Reporting | Provides detailed reports and recommendations | No reporting, leaves no trace |
Tools Ethical Hackers Use
A variety of tools are available to ethical hackers for Gmail hacking and cybersecurity purposes. These tools aid in recon, analysis, and execution.| Tool | Function |
|---|---|
| Burp Suite | Comprehensive web vulnerability scanner |
| Metasploit | Penetration testing framework |
| Wireshark | Network protocol analyzer |
| John the Ripper | Password cracking tool |
| Nmap | Network discovery and security auditing tool |
Cost of Hiring an Ethical Gmail Hacker
Factors Influencing Cost
The cost of hiring an ethical Gmail hacker can vary widely based on several factors, including:- Complexity: The more complex the issue, the higher the cost.
- Experience: Highly experienced hackers charge more for their expertise.
- Urgency: Projects requiring immediate attention could incur higher fees.
- Duration: The length of the project will also affect the cost.
Cost Range
On average, hiring an ethical hacker can cost anywhere from $50 to $200 per hour. Specific projects like account recovery might fall within a fixed price range, typically $100 to $500 depending on complexity and urgency.Protecting Your Gmail Account
Setting Strong Passwords
One of the simplest yet most effective means of protecting your Gmail account is by using strong passwords. Avoid using easily guessable information like your name or birthdate.- Length: Your password should be at least 12 characters long.
- Complexity: Use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters.
- Uniqueness: Don’t reuse passwords across multiple accounts.
Enabling Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-factor authentication adds another layer of security to your Gmail account. Even if someone gets your password, they’ll also need your phone or another device to log in.Regular Updates and Monitoring
Be vigilant about updating your passwords regularly and monitoring your account activity. Google provides a feature that notifies you of any suspicious activity, which can be very useful.Ethical Hacking Certifications
Having an understanding of the certifications ethical hackers may hold can help you verify their credentials. Here are some common ones:| Certification Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) | Comprehensive course covering various techniques and tools used in ethical hacking |
| Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) | Certification requiring hands-on demonstration of hacking skills in a lab environment |
| GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN) | Focuses on penetration testing and methodologies, including advanced techniques and tools |
| CompTIA Security+ | Broad cybersecurity certification, covering foundational security skills and knowledge |
Ethical Hacking in Business Context
Benefits for Companies
Businesses often hire ethical hackers to strengthen their cybersecurity measures. By identifying vulnerabilities ahead of time, companies can protect their sensitive information and reduce the risk of data breaches.Regulatory Compliance
In industries like finance and healthcare, regulatory compliance is crucial. Ethical hackers help these companies meet legal standards by ensuring that their systems are secure and up to date.Training and Awareness
Ethical hackers can also provide invaluable training to employees, helping them understand the latest security threats and best practices for minimizing risks.Potential Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Finding Trustworthy Professionals
Finding a trustworthy ethical hacker can be challenging due to the abundance of scammers in the market. Always verify credentials and ask for references to ensure that you are working with a reliable professional.Balancing Costs
Hiring an ethical hacker can be expensive. To balance costs, define your needs clearly and set a budget beforehand. Sometimes, an initial consultation can give you a good idea of what to expect in terms of pricing.Legal Framework and Ethical Guidelines
Legal Considerations
Understand that ethical hacking must always comply with legal frameworks. Unauthorized access is illegal. Make sure you have the explicit consent of the email account owner.Ethical Guidelines
Ethical hackers follow a strict code of conduct:- Integrity: Always act in the client's best interest.
- Confidentiality: Keep all client data confidential.
- Legality: Ensure all actions are legal and within regulatory frameworks.
Final Thoughts
Ethical hacking can provide legitimate support for various needs, including Gmail account recovery and improving security measures. By hiring a professional ethical hacker, you can ensure that your Gmail account is both secure and accessible, without crossing any legal or ethical boundaries.Navigating the world of ethical hacking might seem daunting, but with the right guidance and considerations, you can achieve your goals responsibly and effectively. Remember, the key is to always act ethically and legally while ensuring that your actions respect the privacy and rights of others.
So, the next time you find yourself in need of a Gmail hacker for ethical purposes, you’ll know exactly what to do and what to look for. Good luck, and stay secure!
2024.06.01 13:07 InspectorAway4096 Metaviruslabs meme coin Project Overview(Solbunny and Visol Token)
 | This is SOLBUNNY & VISOL, an NFT project led by Metavirus Labs. This project was created using NFT technology and blockchain technology, and SOLBUNNY & VISOL has various goals through unique characters created by mutations. SOLBUNNY & VISOL will be expanded and reproduced in various series, and these NFT characters will be applied to all platforms developed in the future. Each has different characteristics and abilities, and with the birth of a new species infected with Tintin's mutant virus, numerous species are born, and the ecosystem is scheduled to expand into Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 for the long journey. It can be used in various fields. For example, SOLBUNNY & VISOL can solve problems and create new business models by utilizing various technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things, and robotics. In addition, SOLBUNNY & VISOL can utilize NFT technology to protect creative works and verify ownership. The SOLBUNNY & VISOL series project creates a new business model by utilizing NFT technology and blockchain technology through the Solnara Network. intends to To this end, we plan to provide various services through VAR and P2E game development. submitted by InspectorAway4096 to SolanaMemeCoins [link] [comments] Discord: https://discord.gg/x7sQdvCztq Everything in Meta in Iinked: MetaVirusLabs Twitter Linktree https://reddit.com/link/1d5kkrg/video/00xy02j90y3d1/player |