If the mean people in our lives were crappy 100% of the time, it would be easy to leave them. We would shrink from becoming friends with them or jump aboard the nope rocket in the early stages of trouble, and we would feel only relief when they are gone from our lives.
The problem is that very few people are evil all the time. They don’t wear villain costumes purchased at ForeverEvil. They don’t laugh maniacally and stroke their evil goatees while monologuing about their evil plans. They appear in our lives as People-Who-Would-Be-Awesome-Except-For-That-One-Glaring-Problem. They have potential to be awesome, and sometimes they are awesome, and they make us feel awesome, so we relax and let out that breath we’ve been holding in, and then BAM! They show their mean side, and we do a ton of mental work trying to reconcile the mean stuff with the awesome stuff.
Breaking up brings relief, as you lose the constant mental labor of managing the relationship AND the stress of being constantly disappointed and hurt, but it also brings grief. Shitty people who forget your birthday and give little backhanded compliments and gossip about your secrets sometimes give really good hugs, or presents, or are your favorite people to get drunk and watch figure-skating with, or were the sole witness to an important time in your life. The good times were real.
I cannot express how much of a lightbulb moment it was when I realized people did not have to be unilaterally awful in order for you not to want to be in a relationship with them
IT’S NOT JUST A BIRD GIF IT’S A VERY IMPORTANT BIRD OF PARADISE CALLED THE SUPERB BIRD OF PARADISE, IT IS FAMOUS BECAUSE OF BBC’S PLANET EARTH HOSTED BY DAVID ATTENBOROUGH OKAY
JESUS
IT STARTS THE DANCE AT 2:05
THE COSPLAYER DOES A SPLENDID JOB OF PERFORMING THE MATING DANCE AS SCRIPTED AND I THINK THAT’S VERY IMPORTANT
The species has an unusually low population of females, and competition
amongst males for mates is intensely fierce. This has led the species to
have one of the most bizarre and elaborate courtship displays in the
avian world. After carefully and meticulously preparing a “dance floor”
(even scrubbing the dirt or branch smooth with leaves), the male first
attracts a female with a loud call. After the curious female approaches,
his folded black feather cape and blue-green breast
shield springs upward and spreads widely and symmetrically around its
head, instantly transforming the frontal view of the bird into a
spectacular ellipse-shaped
creature that rhythmically snaps its tail feathers against each other,
similar to how snapping fingers work, whilst hopping in frantic circles
around the female. The average female rejects 15-20 potential suitors
before consenting to mate.
THIS COSPLAYER HAS TRULY CAPTURED THE SPIRIT OF THE BIRD AND ITS DANCE AT EVERY LEVEL
my favorite thing i’ve ever realized about harry potter is that the gryffindor and slytherin tables are supposed to be on opposite ends of the great hall???
and therefore every time draco is making a scene at a meal (HEY POTTER HAVE YOU SEEN THE DAILY PROPHET??? HEY POTTER I’M MAKING STUPID FACES AT YOU BECAUSE THE DAILY PROPHET SAYS YOU’RE MAD!!! HEY POTTER I’M PRETENDING TO FAINT AT THE SIGHT OF A DEMENTOR LIKE YOU DID!!!!) he is making an extraordinary effort to be noticed across the entire hall
or harry is making an extraordinary effort to notice him
or both
in my mind it always escalates into them standing on the tables and shouting at each other over the entire school
EXCUSE ME POTTER EXCUSE ME HAVE YOU NOTICED ME YET
NO MALFOY I HAVE NOT NOTICED YOU I NEVER NOTICE YOU GOD THERE’S MALFOY AT THE SLYTHERIN TABLE DOING A THING AGAIN GOD FUCK MALFOY HE’S ALWAYS DOING THINGS WHERE I CAN SEE HIM…THROUGH…CROWDS OF STUDENTS SEATED AT 4 TABLES…I DON’T NOTICE MALFOY…HE’S LOOKING REALLY ILL LATELY IS HE OKAY DO YOU THINK
i would just like to point out that the recent conversation surrounding the male birth control trials isn’t just “lol weak men can’t deal with side effects” it’s the fact that when they were testing hormonal birth control for women in the 50s & 60s, the side effects were much worse, and the women who participated in them, mostly in puerto rico, were not told about the side effects or that the drug was experimental
and THEN when women dropped out, they started using incarcerated women as their guinea pigs, and then despite the fact that some scientists who participated in the original trials were like “uh i don’t think this is actually good, it’s making a lot of these women sick,” the pharmaceutical industry & fda were like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and approved it for the general population anyways, without really warning women about the potential for all these negative side effects
and THEN researchers basically ceased to do any type of research on side effects like depression and decreased libido for 50 years, despite the fact that women were still complaining about them, and because there was no “hard evidence” of these side effects, a lot of doctors basically just assumed women were exaggerating or making it up. and that continued until the first major studyof depression in women who take hormonal contraceptives was released just. this. year.
oh, and fun fact: even after this new study was released, a lot of the scientific community is still being like “but can we PROVE these women aren’t just depressed because they’re LOVESICK?”
