Trump supporters should not be hauling garbage.

They should be hauled off AS garbage.

I was getting ready to leave my girlfriend's apartment. We had gone out for a walk and ended up having dinner. It wasn't a formal date or anything, we had been together, officially, for nearly 6 months by that point.

We hugged and just kept hugging. Not petting or getting frisky, just holding each other and enjoying each other's company for the final few moments of the evening.

It just came out, I said "I love you."

She tensed and was silent for what felt forever. Long enough to start thinking I just either ended our relationship, or caused serious damage.

Just when I was about to disengage from her, she relaxed looked up and gave me a very very nice kiss and said; "I love you too."

At the time I lived nearly 20 miles away from her and I do not remember the drive at all.

That was 21 years ago. We have two teenage boys now and happier now than we were back then.

In case someone wonders why I didn't stay with her that night, it was a weeknight. We both had work the next day and she had an earlier morning than usual. The following weekend we spent the whole time together.

54m here who is neurodivergent.

Yes, I can have a conversation with a stranger, but that was not always the case. It took years of practice to get to the point where I could be in a group or one on one and actually contribute.

The issue is, it takes SO much out of me. Where the people I'm interacting with have nice processing centers in their brains doing the bulk of the work for them in carrying the conversation. The processing centers that deal with social interaction are inactive in my brain and I have to actually think about everything going on. Which is a lot of energy to spend on conversations that really have no actual merit, other than just being social.

Think of it this way, do you remember how much energy you had to expend thinking on the last difficult test you took at school? That's how I feel after social interactions. Because I have to do virtually the same amount of thinking in that setting, that most people use on a Physics exam.

Even with my wife and kids, I have to take breaks from them. While the years have given me habits and known behaviors that I don't have to think about with them and keep our relationships healthy. I still have to do a lot of active processing to interact with them.

It sucks, but it is the way I am and always will be.

TIL!

I've lived in Wisconsin since 2006 and did not know that.

Thank you!

Wisconsinite here where the badger is native and the mascot for the University of Wisconsin is the Badger.

This meme is inaccurate.

The American Badger will also remove your kidneys and sell them on the black market as well, to support their meth habit.

As a parent myself, might I suggest using that as her middle name.

When we named our two boys, we chose classic yet timeless names for their first, but did have some fun with their middle names. (and NO, they are not named "Ben" and "Will". My god, I actually know 6 families that have two boys with those names). That way, we got to name them something fun, but they had good classical first names they could go by through out their lives. Our boys were born during the height of what I call the "din" period. Where a lot of babies have names that ended with some derivation of "din", "dyn", "den" or something along those lines.

There is a very good reason why there is an entire subreddit on that other site called "/r/tragideigh".

To me, this is one of the most fully realized female characters in science fiction (at least):

That's awesome.

You mean when it becamse "Fargate" or "Starscape"?

I really liked Ben Browder and Claudia Black in Stargate, however it was really jarring and took a while to get used to.

LOL... I don't think I've seen that scene...aaaannnd not sure I want to.

Thank you for the update though.

You have to watch a LOT more than that!

Some other references:

2001 A Space Odyssey

Looney Tunes (An entire episode was dedicated to the Coyote and Road Runner). That show had numerous other references too, including an appearance of the Enterprise itself.

Dr Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. (Dear John and Hi There for instance)

Dark Crystal

Dracula

Star Wars

There are many many more. The entire show was one big reference to something else.

One of the more esoteric Star Trek references was the aliens urinating. In Star Trek, no one pees. The only time any time of shower/rest room is shown in the entire franchise is in ST:TMP when the Ilia drone appears on the Enterprise. There might be a scene in ST:TOS where Kirk comes out of a door with wet hair and a towel around his shoulders, but that's it.

About the only franchise/movie that I cannot think of a reference in Farscape is Stargate.

My kids made a better choice: