I've always been proud of being pretty literate (a bit too much when I was a teenager) but I fell out of the habit of reading anything except manga and comics by anything other than necessity after I started college. The other year, I watched Dune and loved it. I had already heard so much good stuff about Dune from all sorts of sources over the years that I grabbed the book and was completely hooked. I kept going, liked each entry a little bit less than the last, slowed my pace gradually, and decided I was fine with letting the story be finished after God Emperor of Dune. But I liked it quite a bit, and it was probably the first time I had felt like an "influential" book had lived up to its reputation.

I end up with occasional down time at the job I have now, so reading was convenient l. I'm back into something of a habit and it's great. I feel more eloquent when I speak and more alert of the world around me. I used to feel like I was slowly getting dumber every month since I finished school, and that cognitive tasks got a little harder all the time. I partially blamed that I wasn't using my degree at my job (entry level programmers are not doing so great these days, in my experience) and reading has done me so much good in its place. Admittedly, after the initial burst of enthusiasm wore off, it could be difficult to make myself read. I blame that on the level of overstimulation that social media accustomed me to. Eventually, though, I got more used to it.

I could go on about all the ways I feel better and how it's given me back some self-esteem, but I will just leave it at the fact that I feel better about myself, have more discipline, and feel like I better person than I was. That said, I'm very cautious about not letting "I'm a better person than I used to be because I started reading books" warp into "I'm better than people who do not read books" because it's certainly a flattering thought, even if I disagree at a conscious level.

Anyways, I've built up a chunky reading list and have started working through it. I just finished Gulliver's Travels and figure I'll take a crack at The Brothers Karamazov next. Does anybody have a suggested translation? Also, feel free to share your own favorites, I'm not shy about adding on to my reading list since it's already daunting.

Feels like, because of the way that media and culture is experienced in the modern day, I find myself looking for certain "types" of people. That's not to say I'm ignoring people's individuality or reducing them to caricatures, but there's definitely certain grooves that people fall into. Crypto guy is a type of guy, for example. They're not all the same, but they've got some very distinct and shared characteristics. I think, though, that some of these "types" of people are completely made up and do not exist in a substantial way. Most often, I think that these false typings come from sexual fantasy, objectification, and even a form of commodity fetishism. I think this is a huge part of online culture. It ranges from the "___ gf" kind of images to the starter pack meme format to whatever else you might find. Then there's the middle ground. My best example of that would be the idea of the egirl. There's definitely some people who could be categorized as authentic practitioners who simply are that way, but are generally exploded out of proportion because you can literally make a career being a content creator with that sort of persona and that sort of content gets plastered everywhere.

That's the normal level of unhealthy internet culture you'd expect, but I find myself struggling to differentiate between reality and the fiction of the internet. I might say a certain type of person is blown out of proportion by media and aren't that common since I never encounter them in my real life, but that logic doesn't hold any better than the idea that asian people are mostly fake because I haven't met very many. This starts being an issue when it shapes my expectations of people around me. "I wish I knew more people who had this kind of vibe. Wait, is that a real type of person? Is it just shallow bullshit I'm looking for for aesthetic reasons? Do people actually act like that? Do they really act/think like that, or are they just as internet poisoned as I am? Are there secretly lots of hot goth girls in New York but not Salt Lake City? Is that why the real estate is so expensive, or is it the other way around?" It really makes me feel like I am losing touch with reality in a way that is maybe not healthy, especially when it comes to looking for a partner. Often feels rather misogynistic in a way I can't put my finger on, too.

TL;DR how do you all differentiate between actual types of people and vague collections of biases?

Edit: I don't know why I worded this so poorly, but the notion I was looking for was a subculture. I think there are subcultures that are, to varying degrees, inorganic and overrepresented, but there is no way to have empirical data about the representation of such a vague notion of a subculture.

Two years on from graduating and I've become my computer science degree isn't worth the paper it was printed on, so I've made the decision to try and swing a civil engineering degree in two years. Enough credits transfer that it should be a normal class load. But beyond that, I want to get the hell out of the south yesterday. I want to give living in the PNW a shot and I'd rather avoid waiting another two years for it because I'm at that age where I get very self-conscious about what little time left I have as a """young""" person and how I need to meet somebody or get ready for a dating market where most people my age are taken. We're working with layers of complexes here.

My plan is to see if I can't convince the two friends of mine who were already looking to move to come with me, work a year so I qualify for in-state tuition, then do a two year in-and-out at the university of oregon. On the surface, moving 2500 miles away from the only place I've ever lived to go somewhere I've only heard about through the distorted lens of media in order to take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt is a fantastically awful idea. Upon closer inspection, it continues to feel like a very bad idea. I could very easily end up far worse off than I started, and I'm already in a very precarious spot. But you know what? I've only done what I felt like were good, safe ideas so far and I'm deeply dissatisfied with where that's left me. I went for a safe major that was supposedly guaranteed employment in a high-earning field and after eating all of the time and money that degrees generally do, it did nothing for me. So now I'm going to take a risk on going where (I think) I want to go to do what (I think) I want to do. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified of the consequences of my own actions, but I just can't take living in the fucking suburban south another year.

I have to acknowledge that, along the shallowest dimension, I want some place that lines up more with my personal aesthetic tastes. Cowboy country pick-up bullshit grates against me tremendously. But more practically, the southern states are on a downward trend. They're the most conservative, the more environmentally at-risk, and the poorest, all of which are troubling signs for the future of the people who live here. Maybe the proper Communist thing to do would to be to stay and fight the rising tide, but at the end of the day, I am a coward who knows no community.

My schedule is pretty rushed since I have to be there before September if I want to qualify for in-state tuition for next Fall. I'll miss my parent's dogs (as much mine as theirs) deeply, and I feel guilty that one of them is getting old and I won't be there to see him through to the end. I'll miss bluebell, gumbo, and Mardi Gras. As frustrating as they can be, I'll miss my parents and my sister. And that's the heart of it. I don't know if I'm giving up everything I've ever known because I'm so internet poisoned that I think I'll be happy because the vague notion of communism is more popular, the economy is better, and I think cold weather is cool. So that's it for this pseudo-diary entry. Can anybody relate? More broadly, has anybody here bootstrapped themselves in a wholly new place before?

I was having a plenty shitty day, dropped right back in a bad mental place, and then out of left field I find out my dog's toe needs to be cut off and possibly just be put down. He's 13, so it's not like it's strange or anything, but I'm just such a fucking baby sometimes it disgusts me. I've been just barely able to keep my thoughts off of how much everything in my life seems like it will only ever get worse and I can feel the wild spasms of mania on the edges of my mind. I absolutely dread the moment I have to slip into bed and be alone with my thoughts. Over the years, I've always had issues. This isn't anywhere near the worst I've been. This isn't even the first time I've been afraid of my own thoughts. Somehow, though, it just feels different this time. I guess I've just gotten more fragile. No surprises there, I guess. I'm just so tired of myself and everything else at this point.

Mostly just want to meet comrades. Idle thought while bored at work more than anything.

I've read out there that the ratio between men and women on dating apps is pretty awfully skewed. The estimates I've read, from a variety of sources all claiming inside insight, put it somewhere at 10:3 men:women on the high end and about half as many women on the low end. Let me tell you, I sure do feel it. I've been using some combination of Tinder, Bumble, and Hinged on and off for more than half a decade now and I've had two dates total. The first one didn't have a second date because she sexually assaulted me, the other because she just didn't feel any chemistry. I can get maybe 5 matches in a month if I'm maxing out my free likes on two platforms every day. The chance they even respond to the first message is like 1/10. So on, so forth. I think I'm a decent catch. I take care of myself. I have a job, hobbies (even ones that aren't video games/TV!), open myself up to plenty of new experiences, try to listen to others, and was lucky to be born with some conventionally attractive features. Hasn't helped very much.

This all sucks, but this is nothing that anybody who has used a dating app could tell you. What really kills it all is A) the way this shitty feeling is monetized to sell $30/mo dating app subs that I will not buy on pain of death B) the white-knuckled grip half the women in the south (where I live) seem to have on outdated gender roles C) the lack of any alternatives

Elaborating on that last point, I live about an hour outside of the nearest city of any decent size. I'm in maximum old-white-people-exurb territory. There's basically nothing for me to meet people my own age, let alone women my age, without an hour's drive. All but three of my friends are guys, and they aren't really positioned to introduce me to anybody either. Out of my ~10 closest friends, only one of them has even been in a relationship in the past 5 or so years. I can't move because I'm at my parent's house right now and it feels super hard to justify moving out when you're making less than 50k/yr and have a stable family situation just because I'm sexually frustrated. It's been so long I feel like I wouldn't even know how to flirt or recognize flirting even if I landed in a miracle situation anyways.

What do yall think? Am I making too much out of it?

So, what's going on in y'all's cities? I live in NOLA and recently found an insanely cool DIY site with tons of great local concerts listed. You end up with a good act, usually at a cool venue, and you're only paying $20 max for tickets. Beyond that, though, it's mostly just the usual "oh fuck the city government is so shit that contractors won't even work with them anymore because they don't get paid" kind of stuff that happens all the time around here. Mardi Gras is getting close, though, so that'll be fun.

Not asking anybody to self-dox, by the way. You don't have to name the city.

Learn to code, everybody said. There's so many jobs, and they pay well. Dumbass me fell for the bait. Graduated with a degree in computer science a year and a week ago. Didn't get any internships because I didn't realize how important they are. Graduated with a 2.3 GPA because I always heard people don't care about your GPA once you graduate. If you're generous and cut out the hours from when I failed out of college the first time, it's a 2.6.

I've applied to over a thousand jobs by now. Almost entirely entry level, but I took shots at some nonspecified experience level postings once I got more desperate. I've managed to get two interviews. To add insult to injury, one of the interviewers said that their main concern with me was that I'd move on to a new job in a year or two. I couldn't do that if I wanted to, man. I'm so burnt out on how bad applying for shit sucks when I know most of these companies are throwing my application in the trash in less than 5 seconds.

I've been able to stay stable so far. I live with my parents, who are the best parents I could ever ask for. They're understanding, supportive, and want to help how they can. No worries on the living expenses front, at least, but it's not a situation that can last. In the long term, obviously, they're not gonna be around forever. In the short term, it's just going to drive me completely insane. I've used my leftover student loans and a generous graduation gift from my uncle for the non-essential stuff and managed to limit my spending to about $100 a month, but the well will dry up on that front, too.

All this is to say that I don't think I can get a job with my degree. A year long gap is a bad sign on an already weak resume. Soon it'll be as good as if I had never gone to school in the first place after I spent years forcing myself through math classes I tore my hair out over (why was this 75% of my degree again?) I've tried doing some independent game development to maybe transition in that direction, but I can't force myself to do it because the whole time I just feel like I'm wasting time I should be spending looking for a "real" job. My parents have frequently encouraged me to go get a master's while I wait for the job market to improve. After telling them for months that I didn't want to sink any more money in education (read: training) until it showed some returns, I caved and started looking into grad programs. Looks like I couldn't do it if I wanted to because lmao 2.3 GPA. I'm confident I could get a great score on the GRE, I've always done pretty fantastic on that kind of test. It's the one academic skill I have that I can brag about, honestly. But the GRE for Math would kick my ass into next week, and I'm pretty certain most MS in CS programs would want me to take it.

So I can't get a job in my major, I'm too neurotic to do anything on my own, my grades are too shit to get a graduate degree. I'm 28 now and not getting any younger. I'm beyond sick of being dependent on others. But what else can I do? Service jobs suck tremendously and don't pay enough for me to live off of anyways, especially around where I live. It'd be equivalent of choosing to live in poverty. Every road seems closed off to me. I don't know what I can do to make my way through life and I feel like even if I did, I'd be too much of a coddled loser to take that path.

Sorry for turning it into a blog, I'm basically just some random failson whining. Anybody relate?

Edit: Thanks for the replies, everybody. Feeling a little bit less down. Probably gonna try and make some contributions to a FOSS project and get a job at a grocery store or something while I still live at home.

I took a trip to Colorado this summer and it was the first time in my life I ever really left the south. It just blew my fucking mind. I love where I'm from, but there's just so much fucked up shit that I just thought was how it was. I'm a white cishet, so I'm not vulnerable to the worst of the south, but it absolutely blew my mind seeing somewhere that you didn't just have a background level of distressing shit in view at all times. The most striking thing was how there weren't any ruins around. You get used to seeing overgrown, dilapidated buildings dotting the side of the road pretty much everywhere you go. It was wild to me how rare that was, comparatively, once you get to the other side of Texas. There's a million other things, but honestly I didn't spend enough time there to really know if all of them are the norm or if I'm just making shit up. As shitty as I feel saying it, it would also be nice to try dating somewhere there weren't quite so many ""country"" girls.

My only regret would be leaving behind all my friends and family. That's just such an insane leap to me, and I have no faith that I'd be able to find new friends elsewhere now that I'm out of college. I know I'm experiencing a massively cliche impulse and all that, and that there's lots of problems that will follow you wherever you move, but how do I know if I'm insane or not? Does anybody have advice for trying to find a job somewhere you don't live? I'm sick of all these damn pine trees.