Things you're tired of Clarifying.

[sanquin]

When I tell people I smoke weed I hate to have to constantly clarify that no, I'm not a stereotypical movie stoner. I don't just get high, laze around, and get the munchies. I have a job, I do stuff outside of the house, I visit friends, just like everyone else. (well, most people at least.) So what if I like to light one up in the evening to relax after work? Plus it helps me get to sleep a lot faster too.

I'm Dutch and I hate having to clarify that "wifi", pronounced wee-fee here, isn't pronounced like that. And having to explain why it's pronounced the way it is. It's wai-fai. Everyone gets it wrong here and it always gets on my nerves. (Sure, it's a small thing and just a pet peeve of mine. But still!)

As mentioned a few times above; My name. It's a German name, and people always assume it's spelled in several different ways, but never the correct one. I don't find it THAT annoying, but it still gets to me from time to time.

This one luckily rarely happens, but having to clarify that I don't need to be treated differently, and that I'm not in any way stupid when I tell people I have a light form of autism. (PDD-Nos) Because of this I generally leave this bit of info out of conversations...

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I've gotten similar remarks when someone asks if I play Destiny/The Division/CoD multiplayer or pretty much any multiplayer centric game. I pretty much have to explain that multiplayer, except with friends, isn't fun to me but often a pointless, time wasting exercise in frustration. I guess I could spend a ton of time getting good at whatever multiplayer centric game they're talking about, but in that time I could be playing any number of other games I think I'd probably enjoy(and my backlog is LONG).

The other issue is that my IRL friends and co-workers don't actually play the same games I do that do have a multiplayer element, with like one or two exceptions.

A lot of people think that if you're even slightly miffed about dying all the time in PvP, you're just a sore loser. I think this is crap and it's a legitimate complaint. Now, having said that, just because you die all the time does NOT mean the game is bad, but all the same, PvP play can definitely be stressful, and especially for those who have a competitive mindset like me.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

When I tell people I smoke weed I hate to have to constantly clarify that no, I'm not a stereotypical movie stoner. I don't just get high, laze around, and get the munchies.

When I used to smoke, this was exactly the same thing I remember justifying to many. Got pretty annoying, to the point that I actually forced it the other way, did a lot of stuff stoned just to prove that I wasn't glued to the couch.

As mentioned a few times above; My name. It's a German name, and people always assume it's spelled in several different ways, but never the correct one. I don't find it THAT annoying, but it still gets to me from time to time.

Haha, I have the same problem, but the other way round. I'm half Swiss German, with a Dutch surname. So it gets spelled the German way all the time, which is also incorrect!

After moving to Indonesia, I realized it was also deemed impossible that one could be married for any longer than a year and not have children, or at least some on the way. When I started taking Uber to work the follow-up 'interrogations' started getting ridiculous, so I just started lying about it and saying I had kids, or wasn't married (but that would usually lead to follow-up questions too).

Oh, and if your religious point of view does not involve recognition of some kind of deity, you better get a cover religion as well, and quick. Because that is even more unfathomable.

 

[Elijin]

I tend to clarify that prawns, shrimp, mussels, cockles and such are not fish when they get incorrectly grouped together. Errors of taxonomy get on my wick.

I also clarify issues of grammar, such as the misuse of 'less' in place of 'fewer'. It makes me lots of friends, as you can probably guess.

At least you have less friends eating up your time, allowing more time for your favourite fish, the dolphin!

 

[ErrrorWayz]

Call me old. But i don't justify anything anymore. Don't care enough.

- I never saw harry potter.
- I don't like star wars.
- As a Jrpg fan i hate the Dragon quest series ( Tales of Baseria was my GotY for 2017).

If someone asks why, i'll tell them the reason, but iv'e passed the age where i feel the need to justify the things i like and why i like them. Judge me all you want. I'm too old to try and be cool . ( 29 btw).

Tales of Baseria looks really good. Must give that a go! Can't believe I missed it.

 

[Auron225]

I guess it's less a matter of clarifying and more-so just simply defending teachers and the fact that;

no their jobs are not easy,
no you couldn't do a better job than they could,
even with the holidays they still work way more hours than you,
they're so underpaid it's not even funny,
and your utter lack of respect for them and the bullshit they endure is maddening.

Not everyone is meant to be a teacher. Just like not everyone is meant to be a cop, nurse etc...

I get that some people spent years of their life studying to teach, but some people are in fact horrible at conveying information to others and actually teaching. It sucks but, some people just aren't cut out for some jobs.

The problem is, we still allow those people to teach, poorly.

Not disputing that. Not everyone is cut out for it, so obviously not everyone is good at it. It's people who have no idea what they're talking about claiming it to be easy, and that teachers are just moaning about nothing, that I take issue with.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Or celebrity culture. It absolutely baffles me why someone would want to be famous, or why another person would care about a celebrity they've never met, will never meet, and doesn't know them. I say a photo of Rihanna on the beach, just sun bathing, surrounded by dozens of people with cameras photographing her ever breath. I can't imagine how she is okay with that, or why those people take her picture. It baffles me. But I tolerate it.

This one I can clarify, humans are insanely attracted to social status, either in acquiring it or attracting someone who has lots of it, ergo, they treat celebrities, people with insane social status, like these larger than life people, it's human nature.

The only thing new about it is the scope, aided by modern technology, but you can bet famous knights were celebrities in their own right back in the day.

 

[Tanis]

Atheist, majority wise, do NOT:
1) Hate god/jesus/etc
2) Worship Satan or money or...
3) Use a lack of god to so they can rape/murder/steal/etc
4) Treat them non-belief as though it were 'just a phase' they're going to grow out of.

Non-Hetros, majority wise, do NOT:
1) Hate god/jesus/etc...
2) Choose to be born the way they are...
3) Rape children or think being a pedo is okay...
4) Think they are 'Lost' or think just need a good man/woman to bring them around to the 'normal' side.

:/

 

[Lufia Erim]

Call me old. But i don't justify anything anymore. Don't care enough.

- I never saw harry potter.
- I don't like star wars.
- As a Jrpg fan i hate the Dragon quest series ( Tales of Baseria was my GotY for 2017).

If someone asks why, i'll tell them the reason, but iv'e passed the age where i feel the need to justify the things i like and why i like them. Judge me all you want. I'm too old to try and be cool . ( 29 btw).

Tales of Baseria looks really good. Must give that a go! Can't believe I missed it.

Play Tales of Zestiria first ( if you haven't already). Then play Tales of Baseria. I thought Baseria was fantastic. I loved absolutely everything in that game.

 

[maninahat]

Okay, my favourite couple:

1) A contract isn't just a piece of paper that you sign that says contract on it. A contract is any agreement between two or more parties, whether verbal, written, or even just implied. The reverse of this is also potentially true; just because you've signed a paper contract saying you will do something, you might not legally have a contract because there was never any expectation or obligation between the two parties to do the thing on the paper.

2) The gender pay gap is mostly not a result of blatantly sexist bosses or employees harassing women. Nor is it because women have some instinctive preference for worse paying jobs. It is most commonly a product of a broader society, which passively advantages men and disadvantages women (i.e a gendered culture which teach people from birth what jobs, activities, behaviours etc. are "men's" and "women's"). People have a choice as to what career they want, but that choice is subject to a tremendous influence by that person's upbringing. People who try to argue that women just naturally aren't inclined to apply to STEM jobs or construction mysteriously ignore those places where there are a near equal number of women in STEM jobs or construction (as is the case across central and South Asia, respectively).

3) Blood is never blue. Your veins are depicted as blue in diagrams, and both veins and arteries look blue through the skin, but your blood is always red. Oxygenated blood looks a bit brighter, but that's the only difference.

4) My wife is my wife, even though she doesn't share my surname. She also is Indian, despite having a stereotypically English sounding name. She also is Catholic, despite the presumption that all Indians are Hindu/Muslim/Sikh. She also is fine with contraception and stem cells, despite being a Catholic.

 

[CaitSeith]

Because of my looks, I have to clarify frequently: No, I'm not European.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Atheist, majority wise, do NOT:
1) Hate god/jesus/etc
2) Worship Satan or money or...
3) Use a lack of god to so they can rape/murder/steal/etc
4) Treat them non-belief as though it were 'just a phase' they're going to grow out of.

I?ll add to this: I qualify myself as agnostic, and people of faith tend to believe that and ?atheist? are synonymous. Generically (meaning I don?t need anyone to post the Wikipedia definition,) agnostics believe in something higher, but that something cannot be objectively known or understood. That?s not the same as denying the existence of ?God? or ?A god? or ?gods.? We sit quite nicely in the middle to watch the shit-flinging of the unproveable between two opposing sides who think ?believe? and ?know? are interchangeable terms?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I did not hit her. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not.

 

[Avnger]

I did not hit her. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not.

But that doesn't answer the question of how hard the punches were.

 

[Baffle]

Recently, during a 10 hour road trip, my girlfriend?s son asked from the back seat ?how much miles until we get home?? I almost slammed on the brakes and kicked him out.

Well, don't left us hanging, how much miles were they? To be fare, you should probably have just kicked him out without slamming on the breaks. It would save where and tare on the wills.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Recently, during a 10 hour road trip, my girlfriend?s son asked from the back seat ?how much miles until we get home?? I almost slammed on the brakes and kicked him out.

Well, don't left us hanging, how much miles were they? To be fare, you should probably have just kicked him out without slamming on the breaks. It would save where and tare on the wills.

Haha! You, sir or madam, have won the Internet for the day; NAILED it.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

2) The gender pay gap is mostly not a result of blatantly sexist bosses or employees harassing women. Nor is it because women have some instinctive preference for worse paying jobs. It is most commonly a product of a broader society, which passively advantages men and disadvantages women (i.e a gendered culture which teach people from birth what jobs, activities, behaviours etc. are "men's" and "women's"). People have a choice as to what career they want, but that choice is subject to a tremendous influence by that person's upbringing. People who try to argue that women just naturally aren't inclined to apply to STEM jobs or construction mysteriously ignore those places where there are a near equal number of women in STEM jobs or construction (as is the case across central and South Asia, respectively).

I think it's interesting that in countries where women's emancipation has won more ground and and there is a more active breakdown of the gender binary, the ratio of female employees in "traditionally female fields" only seems to grow, more traditional countries have a far higher rate of male primary school teachers, nurses and secretaries than, say, Sweden for example, and the reverse is also true, they employ more women in fields of hard sciences because more of them apply there.

I don't think it's a matter of cultural conditioning, not for the most part anyhow, rather that people choose their work depending on what is required to make a living and, if possible, earn enough to support a family, women have always worked and they've worked dangerous jobs as well, but you will see them do far less so when the nation's wealth rises and they have the option of choosing safer, less demanding jobs.

And that is not a bad thing, in fact, it is astoundingly beneficial to your quality of life.

 

[Catnip1024]

I think it's interesting that in countries where women's emancipation has won more ground and and there is a more active breakdown of the gender binary, the ratio of female employees in "traditionally female fields" only seems to grow, more traditional countries have a far higher rate of male primary school teachers, nurses and secretaries than, say, Sweden for example, and the reverse is also true, they employ more women in fields of hard sciences because more of them apply there.

An interesting statistic that sticks in my mind, which highlights this nicely, is that Engineering courses in Iran have a higher proportion of women studying than the UK.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Well, don't left us hanging, how much miles were they? To be fare, you should probably have just kicked him out without slamming on the breaks. It would save where and tare on the wills.

That's a humour that snortled my cat into hiding, a credit of appreciation is due as long as the feline doesn't find out

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I will reignite my thread with Salient Topical News!

I do not distrust the Government and/or police because I'm black. I distrust them because they are people and all people have the ability to be corrupt. Even more so when they have more power than the average individual. But most importantly, that distrust doesn't mean that I instinctively hate them all

I was asked about how I felt about the recent Starbucks incident [http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/16/news/companies/starbucks-ceo-apology/index.html]. I said it was a shitty situation. It was unnecessary to be escalated to that situation, and while they could have left (even though they apparently shouldn't have since it seems people just hang out at Starbucks all the time), this incident apparently came from an overreaction by the manager.

That answer wasn't enough. I was asked about how I feel about how those cops needlessly arrested those guys. And I was honest. I don't think it was needless.

I can't prove bias in that manager's heart (although I can sense it). I wasn't there at the incident. I don't know how the gentleman asked to go to the bathroom. Was he rude? Was he confrontational which made the woman feel unsafe? I don't freaking know. I never will. But more importantly, I don't have to know. Unless a big sign is put out front saying "We don't serve Mudbloods", it is well within the rights of a store manager to ask someone to leave.

Now, while I strongly, STRONGLY believe that she had some bias she might not even be aware of, look, at the end of the day she is the person with authority in the establishment. If she expressed to those gentlemen that they are not allowed to be on the premises, they are not allowed to be on premises. If she expressed that and if it was ignored by the gentlemen, she was within her right to call the police.

That, in turn, means that the police were there to uphold the authority of the manager. They were not there to get the gentlemen's side of the issue and come back to the manager and try to talk her out of it. They were there to do their duty. And at that time, the duty was to uphold the manager's wishes, no matter how fucked up they might be.

This left my friend stunned who thought I distrusted the police. To which (tying this all up for you guys!) I had to explain that my distrust from them is merely the distrust I have for all autonomous groups that have a measure of authority over me that I can never replicate. People can be corrupted, groups of people can be a magnify said corruption by magnitudes. But that simply doesn't mean that every action they do is to the ill of the public. Unpopular or not, they did what they came out to do. And yes, I'll say it again, the gentlemen could have left. I understand why they didn't. Morally, I even agree with it after learning that it's common practice to hang out at Starbucks like they were.

But morally does not supersede laws or the authority of those in lawful expression of rights. Morally, no one should be homeless. I wholeheartedly believe that. But legally, if a homeless person breaks into a place and squats... they can't do that because they don't have permission. It's hugely, hugely unpopular to kick them out. But it only fills us with bad feelings when it's not our residence. When it DOES become our residence, the police better do their jobs, right?

... Still distrust the police, though. But like government, they have their function.