I met up with my ex last week. When she broke up with me, it really broke my brain. But I was able to say to her “having a typically attractive* girlfriend opened doors for me with the beautiful middle class people I was always trying to fit in with, and when you left me those doors slammed shut.” It was nice to just voice it out after all these years and put all the weird recrimination behind.
I sorta wonder what the younger comrades feel. I grew up before the internet, in the 80s when we actually believed that everyone was going to be middle class. Back when I was a kid, every TV show and movie was about trying to get into the cool people group. Life from school to through uni through the early naughts felt like everyone was angling to get in the in-group.
I spent my 20s and 30s repeating the same cycle: meet a group of people, feel accepted, try really hard to be part of the group, then get burned from said normie group for various reasons. The older I got the harder I tried. Like guys, I GOTTA make this group work because I’m running out of time.
Now those same people are boring as fuck to me. I can barely maintain the emotional labour to listen to them. If you’re not marxist/anarchist, activist, vegan, and/or mask wearing, I can’t honestly force myself to talk to you. It does help that most of the normies outed themselves as sociopaths during COVID times. Most people who know me IRL probably think I’m cold. I make a real effort for the actual proles I meet tho.
I suspect you younger comrades probably figured it out much earlier than I did. But if you’re still searching, I hope this helps you out.
*Sorry I know that “typically attractive” can be problematic and arbitrary. In this story, I’m referring to the irrational standard enforced by the mainstream culture and media.
Hate to break it to you, but that’s a very niche person. It’s also limiting to constrain your associates to those traits. That could be the ideal friend group, sure, but you can still make friends with someone completely opposite of you, if you are both mature and understanding of each other’s beliefs.
I have a couple friends like that, we talk about our differences, but we don’t try and convert the other person, or make them feel bad for liking one thing over another.
I met a vegan online, and they shared information that was new to me. I learned that, in another life, I would be vegetarian. If I had not spent time getting to know this person, or meeting the many other people I have, I would not have learned as much, and I would still be very naive.
It’s sorta shorthand for giving a fuck. I wish it was a niche. But if you’re OK with hurting and exploiting others, we can’t be real friends. I’m not gonna fuck with you or debate you all the time, but I’ll not give you much more than a passing hello.
If you legitimately have a good faith curiosity in any one of those, I can walk you through the science. But if you don’t care about the immunocompromised, the poor, and murdered animals because you prefer a tiny bit of comfort for yourself, well sir there’s a whole country of normies that you can chill with.
Your wording is intense. I’m not sure if that’s just your online persona, or just venting in this thread, but it’s not very welcoming. You seem like you talk more than listen. I’m not trying to roast you or start bad vibes, that’s just my impression.
Let’s not confuse this with wanting to be friends, parts of your ideals are relatable, but from my impression, our debates would result in you trying to win everything.
Lol, maybe you saved me from wasting my time replying. Thank you.
Communism is just better than liberalism in every aspect, liberal.
This is “civility”, a tool used by liberals to silence dissent and oppress marginalized people.
When people have to conform to arbitrary standards to be allowed to speak, that’s ableist.
“You say you’re a communist, but have you considered nothing’s perfect? Also meat tastes too good to be a vegan. Stop being so aggressive.”
Yeah this is why I also barely interact with anyone who isn’t a leftist. Liberals have already shut down everything I’d ever want to say, they don’t share my values, and me simply existing is interpreted as aggressive. There’s nothing to be gained.
People who are already content with the world simply don’t relate to me. Yes, we’re pissed off at various things. Why aren’t you?
This is why I don’t try to talk to “middle class” people. There’s just a fundamental break in their perception of reality. There are some cool class traitors who have a grounded understanding, but the rest are just content with living their unexamined life.
Jesus Christ. Just get off hexbear. This isn’t going to go well for you
Hurting people and killing animals is intense. I’m sorry that it’s traumatic to hear, but just imagine how it is for those to experience.
As other posters have pointed out, it’s really hard for someone with middle class comforts to have empathy. I don’t have much confidence in changing your mind.
I regularly talk to some people who have stupid beliefs and interests in shit like Joe Rogan and terrible MRA and religious beliefs. But they’re also some of the few people who are authentic and who I can be authentic and have conversations about the strangest, esoteric shit from history, religion, and politics
They’re still not my friends though. Acquittances, sure. The only reason why I don’t make them feel bad for their beliefs is because I likely still need their assistance until we inevitably part ways.
Elsewhere, I’ve completely cut off people who I thought were friends who weren’t communist or any of those things in the list - some even conservative or military vets - but after they joined the military industrial complex and government security, they seized being any friend of mine. At most I’ll send a text here and there, maybe get some dinner once or twice a year. But they will never be my friend as long as they contribute to these evils, not even out of necessity, but because it pays a lot.
I don’t debate these people because my words don’t mean anything compared to their experiences with religion and the holy paycheck. Maybe the weirdo libertarians in the beginning of the post, but there isn’t a single soul out there who just quits their job because a buddy said their employer is genocidal. And I’m saying that as someone who planned on joining the MIC/security state in my teens and early college. Had I been a bit smarter to graduate early and form more connections to get an MIC/state security job, or dumb enough to join the military, I would be no different than these people, and I would likely see nothing wrong with this world as long as i make money.
Some things are simply too fundamental for me to just “agree to disagree.”