Why so few times? The entire world must see!

(despite my very clear “no, thank you, you know I’m really not interested in that with you or anyone else. That doesn’t sound fun to me as much as you think it should, so I’m not interested, but thank you for being honest about it so we could be entirely clear, now please stop commenting on what you want to do to me…”)

Respectfully, that’s far too many words. He said he knows you’re not interested, so everything after that is deliberate harassment. So if you’re comfortable with it, you should say “you know I’m not interested, now quit harassing me!”

I wouldn’t normally give this advice but since you’ve said you can handle physical confrontation, the direct route may work for you. You’re being too nice to a guy who is being zero nice to you. I also wonder if this guy is taking ace/aro the same way some guys take lesbian - as in, they see it as a challenge and think their magic dick will “fix” you. (Obviously you’re not broken).

As far as the guilty feelings, I get it - society trains us to care about others’ feelings more than our own. But try to remind yourself that he’s being deliberately offensive and it’s OK to be rude back sometimes.

As for the young guy, that kind of situation happens. It sucks but that’s life, and honestly, it’s good you gave a firm but kind rejection. I think you handled that one fine! I can’t tell from the story if he was hitting on you or just awkwardly trying to make a new friend, but either way, ‘no’ is a complete sentence. ‘No, thanks’ if you want to be kind. You don’t owe anybody an explanation.

Since you’re asking how to feel better about saying no, consider that these men (especially your coworker) aren’t taking the time to feel badly about imposing on you. They aren’t giving you due consideration, so why feel badly about giving them the same energy? Give yourself permission to not care. They’ll live.

Good luck!

This is the most blessed gif

I committed to sleeping in a silk bonnet every night, and my hair is so much nicer now :)

You thinking EDS?

What’s a potato?

Or took AZO.

Holy crap, 260 bpm!!

Haha I like you ;)

Agreed, but it’s lox :)

Don’t forget the capers!

That’s like an 8% tip.

Oh my god I forgot all about Mallory Ortberg’s interpretations of monk paintings! I used to love these.

Unrelated but she once wrote something like “everyone knows that to properly make a bed, you need to circle it like a shark” and the truth of that has stuck with me ever since. Why is my brain like this haha

Imagine giving birth to that.

She was a super good doggo, I’m sure she’s in charge of dog heaven by now! Here’s a pic of her from early last year.

She was a retired racing greyhound. Greyhound racing has mostly been banned in the States (there’s only one racetrack left), which is great, but also means it’s harder and harder to adopt retired racers. So we’re thinking of getting greyhound puppies since we like the breed so much.

I love goulash, that recipe looks awesome!

Nice and simple, I love it!!

I’ve been with my husband for a long time - it’ll be 25 years this September. We only got married 3 years ago, and it was because I needed to go on his health insurance so I could retire. We were both happy with not being married, and also both fine with tying the knot once we saw an actual reason to do it. We didn’t have a wedding, we just self-united (something you can do in Pennsylvania thanks to Quaker tradition) and filed the paperwork with the state. We don’t wear rings and I kept my name. Literally nothing changed other than my health insurance.

Until we got married, a lot of people seemed really unable to understand why I didn’t care about getting married. In the beginning there was a lot of external pressure/expectation on us to get married, which did die off after a while. I’m really glad that we did it on our own terms when it made sense to us, rather than caving to societal expectations.

Same. I knew from a very young age that I didn’t want kids and that has never changed. I got my tubes tied in 2006 and never looked back!

I mean, duh. Baked beans are stupidly sweet.

I just have to say: I’m really impressed with the way you’re taking the time to educate folks in this thread!

Sadly no, I had a dog but had to put her to sleep last year. She was the best 💜 I do plan to get two puppies probably next year though. :)

This weekend I’m at my folks’ house petsitting their cat, who is a floofy little purr machine!

What’s your favorite comfort food recipe to cook?