My Face Is Having Uncontrollable Spasms. Great. It Hurts Really, Really, Really Bad.

for the past few years i’ve had a personal rule that i do not sign anything i haven’t read - mostly because i genuinely think it’s a good idea, but also as a kind of social experiment - and i wanna share some observations

when i worked at an amusement park, i was one of like two or three people in a group of around twenty young adults who read the employment contract

i gave up on reading every TOS and privacy policy early on - now i only read them if it’s a website or company i’ll be giving personal information to (and even then i only skim them) - but i’ve never found anything super suspect in one

i also have an exception for when i’m made to feel like i’d be an asshole for stopping to read something. notable examples of this going into effect include the patient-intake paperwork at the ER when i went in a few months ago. (i really wish i’d just gone ahead and been the asshole in that situation, even though i have no reason to think there was anything bad in it)

i think the only time i was the only one to read something that the people who gave it to us actually wanted us to read was the waiver at a cat café, which included a lot of safety information about how to interact with the cats

one time i was approached by a guy with a petition who told me it was an anti-fracking petition (which was a real petition that was going around at the time), but the paper he handed me was a petition to instate a “citizenship requirement” for voting. i pointed this out to him and he tried to convince me that even though that’s what it said, it’s not really what my signature meant, and then named the university he graduated from as though it gave him some level of extra credibility??

i have more than once been given a HIPPA form at a doctor’s office where my signature certifies that i’ve been offered a copy of their privacy practices, when i had not, in fact, been offered a copy of their privacy practices. the last time this happened, the receptionist didn’t actually have a copy of their privacy practices, and had to get me to me sign it several days later once she got a copy from her manager

99% of people are very accommodating when you tell them “i want to read this before i sign it,” but it’s never what they’re expecting

on a related note, if someone thinks it’s important that you know what’s in something they’re giving you to sign, they won’t wait for you to read it - they’ll go through, point to each section, and tell you what it says. this is what happened when i signed my lease, and it’s actually a pretty common instance of using my asshole exception, because then i feel like i’m calling the person a liar if i stop to read it myself

the moral of the story is… like… we treat a signature like it’s the absolute most surefire way of saying “yes i understand this and agree to it,” but in practice there’s not even a pretense that a signature means you’ve READ whatever you’re signing. in fact, handing someone a piece of paper and saying “sign here” is one of the LEAST effective ways to make sure they understand and agree to something, and PEOPLE KNOW THIS, and we do it ANYWAY because what else are we gonna do? notarize it??

i don’t have a solution but like. that’s kinda fucked up, you know?

@thoughtstherapy

If you're the person in your friend group who initiates conversations 90-100% of the time, it can feel tempting sometimes to just stop contacting people to see if they will reach out, and therefore if they actually like you or if you are inflicting yourself on them. The problem with this is there are multiple flaws that can't be overcome in this type of test, including the fact that if you always reach out and suddenly don't, people will assume you're busy rather than that you want them to reach out, or just the fact that some people genuinely enjoy your company but hate or are terrible at remembering to reach out. So basically don't immediately assume that silence always equals disinterest or disdain; that's your own hangups talking, not the people you care about.

in case you haven't thought about switching to firefox yet, here's an extension that will...

Notify you if a website you're on has employees that are on strike

Bypass paywalls for major news outlets like the New York Times

Change the browser theme based on the time of day

Directly install third party non-extension scripts

Save individual browser sessions to be reopened at any time

Use the TV format of YouTube in-browser

Make all chrome extensions compatible with Firefox

Turn YouTube dislikes back on

Fix Twitter and make it way less fucked up

Automatically remove trackers from URLs

And many more!

Feel free to add any other firefox extensions you think are slept on.

something that i’m working on is letting things exist without justification. for example, i gained weight recently and i don’t need a reason for it. it’s not “it’s okay because it’s mostly muscle” or “it’s okay because it was while i was on vacation.”

it’s okay regardless.

For all my fellow oversharers out there.

Stop trying to be productive

"wasted potential" you are still living!!! your potential is still here, you can carry on

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

AroAce Database

Just wanted to share this resource in case anyone hasn’t heard of it. Website created by author Claudie Arsenault that has a huge collection of books with characters on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrum. Should be noted that the list is not in alphabetical order - it used to be, but the website is being updated and so things are working differently https://www.aroacedatabase.com/