Feb 3 - The first thing I generally do when I enter a newish space to socialize and be accepted by the people I normally hang around is to act non-threatening which has always made me a little sad but its just how it be. Its just the optimal play to take a wide berth around the big scary tall man in most cases (walking at night) and I don't take offense to it.

I find it funny how differently you get treated when you change small things. When wearing glasses, for example, instead of contacts, I find people are far far more open to conversation and are less closed off to me. Talking in a different, lighter, tone has a similarish effect and can be quite useful in a pinch to make people aware you aren't a threat. I kinda hate abusing it to make people less scared of me but y'know its whatever I guess, I suppose it just kinda feels like lying.

I've heard people describe a similar thing as 'code switching' where you adjust your attitudes to match who you're talking to. Its kinda lame as a concept to me and I don't enjoy having to switch tones or having others do the same just to try and match what I understand best. Some of my best memories from my one year of high school basketball are from enjoying the different culture from the one I was used to outside of sports. At first its a bit jarring but you just have to learn what people actually mean vs what what they say means in your culture. I find a lot of people are really quite the same but just have different ways of expressing it and its kinda sad to see miscommunication cause conflict. Obviously there's differences in experiences and how people see the world but end of the day when someone is by themselves we arent too too different.

I find it very interesting how differently people act when by themselves vs when in a group of people they know. By themselves I find people to be really similar but herd mentality or whatever makes groups be quite different. It doesn't really matter all too much tho and differences make things more interesting in the world.

'It is what it is' has gotta be top 3 phrases of all time because its generally just true and a good way to move on from whatever happened. It just be how it be and that isn't really good nor bad but it's probably atleast a little interesting hopefully. Even if it isn't interesting its still just as awesome. I talked with my dad some other time about goals in life and what would make you content. Of course you have to go for extreme examples here because otherwise you get nowhere so the example was 'sitting stoned in the corner of a room for the rest of your life'. I was trying to explain how yes, I would/should be just as content with my life in that case as any other, but I'd generally rather to do more things and engage with the games of life cause theyre generally more interesting than whatever you could hallucinate in afformentioned corner. I kinda rather the slightly less extreme example with the sisyphus guy and pushing a boulder up a mountain for the rest of your life. As white bisexual boy who doesn't care about gender i am obviously aware of Camus's works cause what else could a white boy do :P I like asking people if they'd be happy to be sisyphus cause its kinda funny and it gives you good insight as to why people aren't killing themselves. If they give a 'no because then there wouldn't be ______' then its a decent red flag for relationships to me cause picking a reason to live thats contingent on something which you can't guarantee will continue to exist, existing just kinda sets u up for failure if said thing stops existing. Its a fun game nonetheless :P

People are cool overall and its nice to be around them generally yuh

I reallllly realllly enjoy being around someone one on one because then you can really get to know them well and its easy to focus on the one person so no one really gets left out. Groups of 3-4 or maybe 5 are pretty solid normally, anything more then that for me becomes a bit hard to manage unless its multiple small groups combined cause then there'll normally be a couple people left out.