Most things in life can be improved with a jaunty brass quartet backing track.

I will bravangelise at someone until the cows come home ... if they ask. Otherwise it's as annoying as someone evangelising at you about being vegan or doing CrossFit.

Yessssss. I want some kind of cybernetic implant that makes them retractable.

But Dr. Mercola said you're supposed to feed your children a 68/23/4 mixture of quinoa, nutritional yeast, and chum. What kind of parent are you??

BUT WHAT IF YOU'RE NOT SUPPORTED

Why does "unsolicited advice is impolite at best" not apply to bras?

I agree with the general premise: men in general expect us to patch them up when they're feeling down, project the feelings they're not comfortable expressing onto us, and are mysteriously not around when it's time to lend us a helping hand. That's a crock of bullshit.

I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of friendship as a commodity or transaction. The idea of an implied obligation of return on investment when I'm offering friendship to someone is anathema to me, gender be damned -- if it's gotten to the point where you believe one of your friends is exploiting the worker in a heterocapitalist power dynamic, maybe that's not a friendship worth keeping. I stress that this is specific to *friendships* -- for example, I have a friend who's a bartender, and she regularly gripes about how men will sob into their cups about their problems and she's expected to pretend to care. Then they don't tip. Fuck that noise; that's emotional labour for a stranger and they best pay up. But my friends? Maybe the dudes are a bit more presumptuous, but that seems more like a function of toxic masculinity, and I would hope I can sit my friends down for a talk about "listen, this feels kinda one-sided and I'm not into it". I support my friends because they are my friends, and one of us might be supporting the other more than usual at any given time, or maybe one of us just needs support more. It's not a transaction -- if I don't want to give it, I don't.

My personal experience is overwhelmingly my female NB friends dumping their shit on me; a lot of the men in my life are still reluctant to emote heavily at all (or if they do, they're trying to go it alone) and I curate my friendships carefully. Sometimes they project onto me, but that's not really specific to dudes. It seems that's not at all others' experience, though, and I admit that being fussy about my friendships had the effect of letting me live in a happy progressive bubble where everything is beautiful and very little hurts. The Lysistrata effect works because everyone acknowledges that nobody's got time for that.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the idea of emotional labour (specifically in friendships) as a transaction or given with something expected in return doesn't sit right with me.

Both parents claim to have "baby brain" upon return to work. No one finds it strange and it's attributed to obvious lack of sleep.

Bees, you have no vacation --

I'm sorry but as the incantation implies a contract rather than an employment relationship, you'll have to take it unpaid.

Methods of transport never need routine maintenance despite regularly travelling distances measured in light-years.