Trump and Elon are going to crash the economy. I know the stock market is actually based on rich people vibes, but I can’t see it not tanking at some point, quite possibly soon. I took all the money I had saved for a down payment on a house out of the market on Tuesday.

Wow. That’s a take. Thanks for responding in depth, I certainly learned something from our interaction today.

I agree with most of what you say, but you’re really talking up Putin, who is worse than Trump so far. How do you believe the Ukraine war should be resolved?

Fair point on disabled people and mothers shouldn’t be counted for a year after birth. If rich people are unemployed yes they should be counted.

I’d prefer a straight up count of individuals not in school, training, or employment age 18 to retirement age.

The unemployment rate is a lie. If you’re unemployed for more than six months you stop being counted.

Yeah top 12 hours for me. I want to see new communities.

I like all of it.

Possums are awesomes! Possums eat ticks and other stuff you don’t want around and are immune to rabies. Good animal to share space with.

I was interested, but I can’t click to visit any of the forums.

Haven’t seen it, sorry.

Please don’t do this to people. Yeah there are way too many pedophiles out there but you’re still so unlikely to meet one. Unless you go to church.

Some friends and I that hung out in college had this with 11:11 on the clock. Felt like we’d look at the time and it would be 11:11 once or even both times every day.

What’s unclear about that statement?

I absolutely refuse to watch something with a laugh track as well.

“Those are dead people laughing”

Civ 6 is better anyway. Let me run away now.

So I thought I pulled a great prank once. I made a QR code that directed to lemonparty. I used an online sticker service’s free trial to print a bunch up with my friend’s Instagram at the bottom. I travel all over for work so I was going to put them everywhere.

My problem was I printed them in yellow and they wouldn’t scan. I told my friend and he thought it was a funny idea just like I knew he would, not a malicious prank. Wish it had worked.

It’s true. Every day I want to get drunk. Somewhere after the third 9% beer I finally feel like “me”. Or like the best version of myself. But it’s false, just like the false confidence it brings.

I still drink once or twice a week. But every day that I don’t is a struggle whether I was drunk the day before or if I haven’t had a drink in a month.

My friend came over last night and we got drunk. At one point I said something and put my finger in his face. He misheard what I said and told me if I don’t move my finger he’s going to break it. I dared him to try. We ended up crashing over the table into the floor where he used his BJJ training to headlock me unconscious. This may sound terrible but we’ve always fought for fun over the years. What I regret is that my wife saw me go limp and it scared her.

What was the point of that? Today I feel like dogshit and my throat is so bad it hurts to talk. When we finally got around to playing the game we had planned on, my friend was so drunk he couldn’t play.

Yet I want that every day. I almost went out for beer before the snow got too bad but I stopped myself. That’s the best we addicts can hope for. To get to the point where we can stop ourselves.

Sorry a lot of talk about me, but OP you are 100% correct that your friend will never change until they want it for themselves. There is very little you can do to force that. If your friend is using opiates then please get some narcan for them and for yourself. Just be there for support because they’re going to need you once they make that decision. You can also try to make sure they have food to eat, easy stuff, because sometimes addicts neglect that and it just makes everything worse.

If it’s a group of 15+ people and I’m not with my wife I’m pulling the Irish exit every time.

Same here.