I knew a couple guys who had been struck by lightning. They were terrified of storms after, so when there was any lightning in the distance, they would rush inside with their coats over their heads.

I do not want to be struck by lightning.

Still better than not voting to not go off the cliff.

Yeah, that's dumber than magic underwear. That might be the dumbest religious thing (with the exception of, you know, wars) that I've seen. Calling all of Manhattan your (and specifically your) domicile doesn't stretch the meaning of domicile, it completely ignores it.

I don't think it adds any more confusion than the pre-existing pronoun confusion you already described as part of the language (your she and her example) and there is already an established answer for it (you don't use a pronoun for one of them, you use their actual name or what you are referring to).

Pretending that it adds some grand new confusion that makes it difficult to keep up with because in very rare circumstances someone who is already really bad at communicating with pronouns (because one would have to have problems with your "she slapped her" reference to have problems with singular they/them) might have difficulty communicating what they mean by "them."

Try reading a novel where one charter is "they/them". It's needlessly confusing, and bring the hate, it's a stupid fad.

It's literally been used in the singular for hundreds of years for any individual where the gender is not known, and has never in my life been confusing. For example:

"The suspect entered the store, then they exited through the back."

English is my first and nearly only language and has been for 42 years, and there has never been a time that a singular "they" was not used. It is not a fad, the fad is taking issue with it. And hopefully in 20 years we won't have to deal with this fake "all of a sudden" bullshit, whether it's "they/them," vaccines, or any other nonsense that people suddenly take issue with because some talking head told them to and acted like it was new.

I've heard "what if there's an emergency or fire," and I feel like the answer is "take three seconds to put on pants."

I'll never understand how difficult people make things by not being forthright and making things awkward:

"Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?"

"...I think there's been a misunderstanding. I had asked you on a hike as a fun first date, I didn't realize you had a boyfriend. I'm going to bow out of this, but I can give you the hike info if you want to take him." And then you laugh about the misunderstanding the next work day, and keep things at work from then on. No reason for it to get bad. Flirting is still fun! Just leave it at that without expecting anything more.

There are more appropriate ways to say this:

"Nobody with kids. I might want kids some day, but I'm not ready yet, and it feels like there would be too much pressure to either be involved with her kids or be cut out of a major portion of her life until we're really serious. And again, not ready.

And somebody athletic, since I'm into biking and hiking and other activities that require a certain level of fitness.

And... well, somebody who isn't into the whole casual sex thing, honestly. I think sex is special and, for me, requires a strong emotional connection. I want someone who has similar views on sex."

See, I feel like it changes it when you're not focusing on the other person, but yourself. I'm not ready for kids, I'm into fitness, I'm a demisexual. It sets up the same thing without disparaging people who aren't what you're looking for.

Her character gave the impression of being in her thirties with a doctorate and tons of experience, regardless how old the actress was. In the books she was apparently in her "late twenties" so that reasonably tracks.

This isn't even satire. I am willing to bet if my conservative coworkers even hear about it, they'll basically say this. Or make some comparison to Venezuela if they are slightly more aware than just parroting Fox.

My experience with people who are really into working out is that they want everyone to be into working out, and want to help you get there. They're nerds for lifting. They're excited to get you excited.

Anyone who shit-talks you for not already being great at it is a fucking poser and you should tell them that.

So I'm in the military, and my unit is particularly pleasant to be at, enough that if there are other military people on here, they might get upset by what I'm about to say.

We have peer group meetings with the Commanding Officer of the base, meaning each paygrade meets with the CO without the people above or below them to hear, and discuss issues. As you can imagine, those in the lower paygrades tend to be significantly younger, and when it got to my paygrade, we were all, almost without exception, millenials.

To give a background, in the military we get 30 days of leave per year (basically vacation), unlimited sick days, maternity and paternity leave (I believe it's at 2 months for Paternity, which is pretty generous by US standards). Additionally, at my unit, we get a four day weekend for every federal holiday, have various "morale days" through the year for fishing derbies, group hikes, etc, and a 6.5 hour work day (cue all military going WTF?!).

At the lower paygrade peer group, a few of them were apparently asking for "more control" over their time off, and being able to take ask for days off with no notice because the weather was going to be good (for hunting, for example). When the CO brought the stuff they were saying up to us, the older, supervisor, millenials, we were facepalming and talking about the fucking Zoomers. But then something amazing happened:

The CO said he could see their point, and maybe we take some of those four day weekends and instead give a few "Liberty Bucks" at the beginning of the year to each person, that can be turned in to get a particular day in the immediate future off (like getting the next day off to go hunting). That actually worked really well for us, because it made those long weekends easier to schedule, and spread out the days people would be out.

And I realized we Millenials were just so happy to have what we had, we couldn't fathom asking for something better... but they could, they did, and got it.

Fucking Zoomers indeed. Keep pushing, y'all.