Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

what sites do queers use to meet other local queers now? i haven't tried to use any kind of dating site in over 5 years, so i'm completely out of the loop. i'm not necessarily looking to date even, just to meet some queer people in the area, and i'd prefer not to wade through a million straight dudes' dick pics to find them.

 

I've had some luck with Meetup! There may also be fb groups in your area, if you're in a big enough city.

 

Okay, so I'm having a longstanding dilemma.

Spoiler: alcohol

So I don't drink, and have been able to avoid doing so without too much trouble (at least after several years of practicing how to fend people off). That said, the situation I tend to find myself in now is one where a bunch of people will ask me over the course of a short span of time if I want a drink, or telling me "just try it, you won't taste the alcohol" and similar nonsense. I can handle this just fine when it's only a couple people, but when it's a bunch asking similar things in a row I start to lose my patience. Inevitably, I will eventually lose my temper and snap "NO. I DO NOT WANT TO DRINK." The individual person who asked me will also inevitably be confused and upset that I snapped at them. I want to avoid snapping, and generally losing my temper with people (especially because a lot of them are genuinely not trying to pressure me), but I also don't know how to become more patient when being cajoled into drinking is a borderline trigger for me now. Please advise?

 

This won't work if multiple people are specifically trying to get you to drink alcohol, but if it's just trying to offer you a drink- make sure you always have a drink of your choice in hand. If there is a bar to order from, you could ask for cranberry juice in a wine glass or something. But even if it's just a can of soda, it might be easier to say a quick "I'm good/I've got one, thanks!" then have to go back and forth about it.

 

Also might be worth trying "I can't, it'll make me sick"

Some people want elaboration on that but screw em quite frankly

 

I have plenty of excuses built up over many years of doing this. I just need advice for how to not lose my shit at people who don't realize they're the 14th person in a row to "oh, are you sure?" me. Thank you both though :)

 

What I do is prepare myself as if this is a retail situation: i keep in mind that they dont know they're the 50th person to ask a stupid question. Which is why this sort of social setting is super tiring for me, but the retail mindspace works as well as almost anything would

 

ohhh that's very good, thank you
yeah, I try to avoid spaces where this kinda thing happens but sometimes I just want to spend time with my friends and not all of them are nondrinkers

 

idiot student in low quality housing question incoming: does anyone have advice on ANTS? they are in my house and i do not want that. i think i found their nest (colony?) entrance in our living room. i've put up two bait traps where i see them scurrying about now and then. the entrance is now also liberally dusted with Ant Poison. but if any qualified adults (tm) have advice on what 2 do if it doesnt work id be grateful.
disclaimer: i rent this house and have No Rights As A Tenant (english landlords SUCK!) so nothing destructive is allowed ://

 

I am not a particularly qualified adult, but my family's been dealing with ants for upwards of six years, rip. You're doing the right thing, finding the place they originate and putting poison/traps there is the best way to ensure the poison gets carried back to the rest of the colony in the walls where you can't reach. If it doesn't work, your best bet is unfortunately calling an exterminator.

 

i was hoping to avoid that, but thank you anyways. here's hoping the poison does the trick, then.

 

I'm aware the answer is quite possibly 'there is no way to do it', but I wanted to check first--

If I have a thing that I want to hook up to a television that only has HDMI ports/cords, and a television that for some godforsaken reason doesn't have any hdmi ports only has usb ports, is it possible to make them talk? Or is this a case of 'you need another tv/monitor that does accept HDMI'?

(The DVD player is connected with... something that is neither HDMI nor USB, but I have no clue what it is.)

 

i know jack shit about tech, but i just googled "hdmi to usb" and it looks like there's adapters for it, so it might be possible?

 

Yeah, an adapter should work. My work laptop only has usb-c and my monitors at home have HDMI so I got a converter and it works fine. Different USB than you're looking at probably but I don't see why the corresponding converter wouldn't do the job.

 

Update on the HDMI situation:

Apparently USB -> HDMI is a thing, but not the other way around.

...and sometimes TV manufacturers hide their HDMI ports for no good reason.

 

thanks for the bowl advice, but unfortunately No Tenant Rights forbids (!) pets. all pets. any pets. even lizard in a terrarium. even fish bowl. so no worries about the two sad houseplants or the plush bulbasaur slurping up ant poison.
(im pretty sure that at home in germany you can't categorically forbid pets. england. sigh.)

 

What on earth are they afraid will happen? Are frogs a slippery slope to large, poorly trained dog ownership?

 

the reason my old landlady (am British) gave for forbidding me a cat was that she let the downstairs tenants have a cat once and then the upstairs tenant started complaining about allergies because the cat got into the walls (??? or something???) and therefore she just Couldn't Risk It Any More
she let me have a hamster though, who ripped up the carpet in the corners of the bedroom by her cage and caused a lot of woodshavings everywhere, so i think it's a mixture of not thinking about stuff and just Not Wanting To Deal with the potential issues animals can cause.
it's daft either way tbqh