#it's admirable how allergic he is to serving etc etc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stayndays · 4 years

Text

❀⋆ Boyfriend!Felix Headcanons

「❀⋆ Anon: “Headcanons for dating felix and *another request here*?” 」

thanks for the request anon, and sorry for taking a bit to answer it! the second part of your request will come soon ^^ this is 10x longer than it was supposed to be, i may be 100% team jeongin, but boyfriend felix is something else!!

i’ll also be doing this same template for other boyfriend headcanons, so don’t be afraid to send in a stray kids or day6 member!

confession:

a lot of headcanons leave these out and i hate it when that happens so here we are!!

listen

i can only see felix liking their best friend aND THATS IT

so with that statement, you guys are super comfortable with each other

you’ll literally tell him your darkest secret and he’ll be fine with it, vice versa

so when he said “hey wanna like,, go out on a date” while you two were spread out on a couch

...

you thought i was gonna say “you were cool with it”

but of course not!! your best friend just asked you out???

“did seungmin dare you to say that?”

felix looks at you with wide eyes

“i swear he didn’t! i’ve liked you for a while, okay??”

he pushes your leg with his foot (like what minsung did in two kids room)

“ow, but of course, i’ve like you for a while too dipshit”

“thanks dipshit”

firsts:

first date

if you’re reading this in the fabulous quarantine era that i’m experiencing right now,

of course you two are going on an animal crossing: new horizons date!!

it doesn’t matter if you two are right next to each other or at different locations

or if you guys go on a lil’ museum date or get swarmed by wasps, it’s still a great first date

but if you can actually go outside when you’re reading this,

or is allergic to dogs yOU KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING- (if you are allergic, your date is the one above this is getting to long dear god)

i see him taking you to the dog cafe he always goes too ^-^

he introduces you to all the dogs and their names and personalities

treats you to whatever the cafe is serving

just,, amazing,, of course,, just like him,,

first kiss

you two were at an arcade for another date

stopping at the iconic stuffed animal claw machine

and he was DETERMINED to get that pikachu plushie for you

you stood by him the entire time, waiting for the claw to grab it

and he did it!!

once he pulled it out of the machine and presented it to you

you did a（*＾3＾）and wrapped your arms around him because that’s my boyfriend!! he got this pikachu plush for me!!

probably gave you a（*＾3＾）back and then turned into a liquid form, covering his face painted with blush

first “i love you”

probably just came out without him realizing

it was (ironically, another first) your first time sleeping in the same bed with him

you were facing each other, and you started to admire his star like freckles

“what are you staring at?” he suddenly asks you

your take aback before answering “your freckles of course”

welp, he didn’t know how to respond to that

so he decided “enough!” at how separated you two are and brought you to his chest, placing his chin on the top of your head

although it’s starting to get hot because of all the limbs surrounding you, the gesture makes your heart beat faster for him

and as your muscles start to relax and your breathing becomes slower,

you hear the faintest “good night, i love you” mumbled into your hair

and you had just enough energy to say “i love you too” back before you fell into dreamland, feeling his hammering heart

affection (hugs, kisses, cuddles, etc.):

listen listen LISTENNN

remember in skz’s video about felix the members said how felix is super affectionate??

WHY ISNT THIS TALKED ABOUT MORE OFTEN I W A N T HIM

sorry jeongin

i firmly believe (like other skz writing blogs) that whenever felix surprises you with a backhug he kisses your cheeks afterwards

aND whenever he’s feeling playful he kisses you with a loud “mWAH”

they’re actual stay headcanons now, fight me

(credits to those who thought of that!!)

then again pretends to bite your arm off while you stare at him like “0-0”

absolutely LOVES IT when you two are on the couch, he’s focusing on playing his video games on the tv and you lay down and wrap your arms around his torso (like that seunglix moment in their gone days mu:fully series?? yeah except you’re felix and he’s seungmin now lol)

totally random but bops your nose a lot and rubs your cheeks together

in conclusion: cuddly boi who we’d all die for

3 extra acts of love:

i mentioned this in skz’s bff headcanons, but it’s still a tradition for you two to eat banana pancakes! this time, it’s changed to every saturday that felix has a day off, so you can wake up together and cook a delicious breakfast!

his favorite thing to see is you dancing, whether it’s professionally or just in the kitchen cooking dinner. if he had a bad day or is really stressed out, everything washes away when he sees your dance.

even a few months into your relationship (since you two are already best friends), he’s already talking about your future with him! like how your wedding’s going to be, if you want children, he loves talking about stuff like that! he never sees himself dating another person other than you ^^

#stray kids #skz #stray kids felix #lee felix #stray kids fluff #stray kids reactions #stray kids imagines #lee yongbok #stray kids yongbok #stray kids lee felix #stray kids lee yongbok #stray kids felix fluff #stray kids headcanons #skz felix #stray kids scenarios

204 notes · View notes

theteablogger · 5 years

Text

Andy writ large

Several people have sent me links to the New Yorker article in which Ian Parker exposes author/editor Dan Mallory as having lied, gaslighted people, and engaged in other manipulative behaviors for many years in order to further his career. When confronted, Mallory tried to blame it all on mental illness. Anons have been discussing this on tf-talk and FFA, noting that Mallory sounds a lot like "the prestige drama version of Thanfiction", and I have to agree. I've written several times in the past about people who reminded me and others of Andy (Aiden Sinclair/Richard Outhier, Travis Aaron Wade, Kevin Spacey, Teri Hoffman and Tyler Deaton), and the similarities in this case are even more striking than any of those. So here are the things that stood out to me in Parker's article. This is a pretty long list, so I've broken it down into several sections for readability.

Generally manipulative behavior:

Tom Scott described Mallory, at their first meeting, as being self-assured and nonchalant in a way that (to me, as a reader) seemed studied. He also said that Mallory casually bragged about his success in a way that left him feeling charmed rather than nonplussed or annoyed. This matches up with several accounts I've read of people’s first impressions of Andy when he was in the LotR fandom.

Both Andy and Dan Mallory tend to get personal with strangers quickly and to overshare – e.g., the "lighthearted debate" at a festival in which Mallory abruptly got serious and spoke frankly (lying) about his alleged history of ECT. This kind of oversharing tends to elicit sympathy from listeners and to make them feel that this person is being genuine and vulnerable with them, which makes them more inclined to open up in turn. This is something that Andy was doing as recently as last year, but he misjudged his audience some of the time and they just found it off-putting.

They frequently engage in self-deprecating humor, which is endearing and encourages others to let down their guard. These days, Andy incorporates glib, jokey references to his past into this part of his shtick (e.g., "someday over a glass of wine, I'll tell you about the time I accidentally started a hobbit cult"), so it also serves to inoculate listeners against anything negative they might hear about him from other people.

Both tend to zero in on and exploit good-natured people who give others the benefit of the doubt.

Both pride themselves on (and brag about) using charisma and "wit" to talk their way into places/situations for which they are underqualified, that they can't afford, etc. See Andy’s remarks about getting "gorgeous service" at high-end boutiques based on charisma alone, and the commencement speech in which Mallory bragged about talking his way into a thesis program without doing the qualifying work.

These men hate to be in anything that could be construed as a subordinate role, although this is one area in which Andy is arguably more subtle than Dan Mallory.

Both enjoy hiding in plain sight—in Mallory’s case, through his novel.

Both have long histories of engaging in gaslighting, lying, and manipulation for their own benefit and/or entertainment.

Acquaintances have described both men's behavior as performative and calculating.

Neither could let go of their former victims, but instead kept contacting them to try and draw them back in—Andy did this with Abbey after she left him in Virginia, and Mallory did this with his former colleagues in London.

Lying liars who lie:

Both men have lied repeatedly and extensively about their physical and mental health histories, and can't be bothered to keep their stories straight. In Andy’s case, this has included claiming various psychiatric diagnoses with symptoms corresponding to their Hollywood portrayals, telling stories about allergic reactions and injuries that were wildly exaggerated at best, and more. Mallory told ever-changing stories of psychiatric treatments that worked either very well or not at all, blamed his chronic lying on Bipolar II (a claim that would be ludicrous if it weren't so offensive), repeatedly claimed to have brain tumors and/or cancer, and told a variety of lies over the years about family members' illnesses and deaths that never happened.

Both have lied about having mysterious, incurable ailments that would definitely kill them within a set number of years—which was prone to change—but that conveniently didn't stop Mallory from working when he felt like it, or Andy from traveling anywhere his friends would pay for.

Each of them has told a multitude of easily disprovable lies about his education, his family, and his personal history.

Both claimed to have been abused as children, though Andy told long, graphically detailed stories about it and Mallory doesn’t seem to have gone further than making an implication.

Each has lied about a younger sibling's identity: Mallory impersonated his brother in a long series of emails to former colleagues about his alleged ill health, and Andy told his friends that his sister was responsible for everything he'd done to people as Amy Player.

Both have inadvertently revealed themselves via verbal, syntactical, or spelling idiosyncrasies when impersonating others online.

Both impersonated other people to chronicle their fake or severely exaggerated illnesses and to describe their plucky/humorous behavior during alleged hospital stays.

Both faked accents—Andy was "Irish" and Mallory was "British".

Both have claimed, directly and by implication, to have connections and insider knowledge of Hollywood, the film industry, and/or screenwriting.

Aside from all the outright lies they've told, both men have engaged in lies of omission, deliberately not correcting others' misunderstandings or misperceptions about them.

When their lies were exposed, both claimed that their accusers were lying because they were sexually attracted to them and had either been rejected (as Mallory said of the CEO of a publishing house), or were disturbed by the attraction (as Andy said of Turimel).

Both tend to double down when confronted about an obvious lie, and then try to steer the conversation to other topics.

Miscellany:

Each is the eldest son of affluent parents.

Mallory's fascination with Tom Ripley is reminiscent of Andy's admiration of Frank Abagnale.

Both were involved in their college theatre departments. For Andy, this is true of his attendance at VCU, at Thomas Nelson Community College, and at Christopher Newport University almost twenty years ago. (I’m not sure what he did at George Mason. He wasn't there for long.)

The work of both men is, shall we say, "derivative". In Andy's case, this applies more to his art. I am not familiar with Mallory's work other than The Woman in the Window and a handful of quotations from essays and e-mails he's written, but it appears that in TWW, he may have ripped off a novel by Sarah A. Denzil that was published six months before he started trying to sell his book, and has almost certainly ripped off "Copycat", a movie from 1995 (see New Yorker article).

Mallory’s focus on process and strategy in writing, the way his own voice overwhelms that of the narrator, and Parker's description of TWW as "a thriller excited about getting away with writing a thriller" all reminded me of the experience of reading DAYD and the way Andy has often talked about writing and storycraft.

Many former associates of each man were at least somewhat aware of how sketchy they were, but were unable or unwilling to call them out.

A surprising number of people, despite knowing they've been lied to repeatedly and at great length, still like both of them quite a lot.

Both Andy's and Dan Mallory's parents seem like kind, decent people who love their sons and want to believe the best of them.

Specific lines from the "New Yorker" article that made me think of Andy:

A former colleague on Mallory: "'If there was something that he wanted and there was a way he could position himself to get it, he would. If there was a story to tell that would help him, he would tell it.'"

"He’d begin with rapturous flattery…and then shift to self-regard. He wittily skewered acquaintances and seemed always conscious of his physical allure."

Author Sophie Hannah: "Mallory 'renewed my creative energy,' she said. He had a knack for 'giving feedback in the form of praise for exactly the things I’m proud of.'"

"Speaking in Colorado last January, Mallory quoted a passage from Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir, 'An Unquiet Mind,' in which she describes repeatedly confronting the social wreckage caused by her bipolar episodes—knowing that she had 'apologies to make.' … In more recent public appearances, Mallory seems to have dropped this reference to wreckage. Instead, he has accepted credit for his courage in bringing up his mental suffering, and he has foregrounded his virtues."

Mallory: "It's been horrific, not least because, in my distress, I did or said or believed things I would never ordinarily say, or do, or believe—things of which, in many instances, I have absolutely no recollection."

#andrewmblake #andythanfiction #thanfiction #dan mallory #andy blake #andrew blake #hiding in plain sight #mental health

32 notes · View notes

queenbabyqueenbaby · 4 years

Text

TO WHAT END? / SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS

Nothing like searching for lived reference points in the midst of a pandemic to make me realise I really haven't been alive that long - the AIDS crisis preceded my conception, I wept through 9/11 not because of foreign threats or impending war but because my hamster died, SARS and e-coli and swine flu were just biological gossip, Conservative majorities just meant funnier cartoons: these were topics for grown-ups with big newspapers and big concerns like adultery and wine

I’ll cop to a shielded youth, and what wasn't kept from me I made up for in years of insularity (substance misuse, food control, and the institutions both led me to again and again). As good as born into the internet age with depression flooding both sides of my DNA (if you believe in that stuff) the world’s news felt like a game of The Sims for which solipsism was a cool cheat code

When the proverbial shit hit the fan in 2008 I was sitting exams in an NHS psychiatric ward (one of the last decent ones of its kind), and because my parents didn't own small businesses or huge hedge funds but rather were (and still are) doctors in the public sector, nobody declared bankruptcy anywhere near me or my weird public sector body

Instead our livelihood relied on the truism, perhaps even the hope, that people always get sick, need medicine and to shit in metal bowls, they need bones replaced and brains scanned, they need morphine and DNRs and naso-gastric tubes and their seizures analysed. I try not to take this reliability for granted in retrospect, especially now that there's a decidedly medical theme stamped on everybody’s idea of the future

I think doctors love to be doctors because medicine sits at the perfect intersection of needing-to-be-needed and rushed emotional detachment. Playing the saviour is a delicate balance - the line between feeling extraneous and people asking for too much is thin, as much in life as in the hospital

Our, and I guess it is our, virus is about to call the bluff of all doctors’ God complexes - I know from my parents’ late night arrivals home that having time between shifts for martyrdom is one of the job’s secret perks. The next few months won’t leave that kind of time. Medics and nurses aren't on as high a pedestal in the UK as in other countries, and their pay reflects this, but that job title still gets you laid

Am I really dragging doctors? In this economy? Look, it’s an admirable job I couldn’t do, I’m too selfish and a little allergic to latex. It’s just tricky to square my own parents’ very human shortcomings with the fact they are already this year’s heroes, no matter their specialty. These are ugly grievances of mine dating back several news cycles

How my friends and other chosen-family handle this month’s uncertainty is teaching me more about them than a year of friendship ever could. The pessimists and optimists divide up easily, but the subsections of each run from predictable to full childhood attachment theory. I have some categories in mind for their attitudes which still need some work - “Pessimistic-depressive”, “Optimistic-anxious”, “Fearful-creative” “macro-delusional” “micro-obsessive” etc.

We hear and see what we want to in the news, the stats, the government, the grocery store - and everybody (me included) spins it how they want depending on blood sugar or sleep deprivation. If you want armageddon - the internet has that. If you want hope - it’s got that too. Escapism - in spades

There are the friends whose psychologies have felt calamitous for months, who see a world which finally matches their brain chemistry and feel a bizarre relief. It’s an excuse to relapse, to harm, to let whichever brand of recovery they’ve knit together rapidly unravel, to reverse veganism and gluten embargos, to masturbate and cry and unbox the PlayStation to shoot CGI hookers in the dark while the globe goes as broke as they’ve been since graduation

Other friends quantify their distress in money because death and time no longer register, friends who’d rather die in a casino than ask their parents or colleagues for help, whose egos are tied up in stocks and revenue and independence and work and who pay back their years-old love overdrafts in housekeepers and happy endings and nutritionists and berets and stony generosity so they don’t have to get too vulnerable. I could say most of these friends are men but there’s more equality here than you think

There are friends whose big picture hopefulness is endearing or nauseating depending on my mood, on a good afternoon I’ll concede that, yes, this could signal a new era in how humans connect and share, that power structures and class systems are to be shaken up and how we care for the most vulnerable will transform only through such tremendous short-term discomfort. On a bad evening this’ll make my blood boil, I’ll tell them the very lack of human connection we’re headed for is what will destroy the interpersonal, push love further into its own antonym, I’ll tell them we need only glance at how hoarding and slander have skyrocketed this week to see that socialism will be the butt of every 2020 joke, that whoever’s respiratory systems are spared will find themselves short of breath either way, that divorce lawyers, OCD specialists and pharmaceutical companies will clean up in the autumn. Then these friends say something like ‘we are all in this together’ and I’ll say then why don’t you come to the studio to hang out and they’ll say I can’t because you might make me sick

There are others I know, mostly older, who operate at a kind of denial/realism junction that doesn't fit neatly into pessimism or optimism - they say the news is burying itself in hyperbole, that too many are enjoying the drama, that in a few weeks or months we’ll come to our senses, free of geriatric ballots and rhetoric and start buying new phones, and this feels as plausible as any Rapture / dystopia theory. I am worryingly open to all possibilities. While calling it a “sudden tragedy” seems too myopic and schmaltzy, calling it “nature’s spring clean” feels a little crass. My studio landlord takes a dismissive but spiritual stance - “everything the god says when you gonna die and who gets the illness it’s already wroten”. Has he, too, just stumbled upon the wrong corner of the internet or did he just serve me a level of acceptance in one sentence I’ve tried for 4 years to reach in AA?

Me, I’m taking a little from all categories, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sanitizing the self-destruct button in preparation for pushing it, but I’m trying to allow the Big Picture to take me out of that kind of teenage thinking, too. I’m quick to substitute gratitude for tantrums or look for cheat codes

I try not to check the news and then I do, an unverified statistic gives me a little palpitation, so I smoke, work, I eat, I fret about fresh produce, moodboard a suicide, wish I was asleep, wish I was passed out, wish I was getting laid, wish I was smarter or more selfless, wish it wasn’t raining, wish I was in America as planned, feel immense relief I'm not in America as planned

More than anything I marvel at how freely and brazenly I turned down a party invitation, a dinner, other now-unsanitary or lethal gatherings, wish I’d gone to more, wish I’d touched my friends and let them sneeze in my face while that was still okay. I look up whether nostalgia is allowed when “the past” is two weeks ago, whether that needs its own word. I look up our blonde leaders and decide blonde hair ought not to exist on an adult

chant idea:

I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of lucky ones

because it’s likely if you’re reading this you’re one of the lucky ones, too

0 notes

airoasis · 6 years

Text

22 Thought-Provoking Journal Triggers to Clarify Your Worldview, Boost Your Inspiration, and ...

22 Thought-Provoking Journal Prompts to Clarify Your Worldview, Increase Your Motivation, and Discover Your Unique Purpose

Caio Resende; pexels.com

Tired of being stuck in a meaningless slump or on a confusing plateau?

Want to take some time and think about it, maybe write it out in a journal, but don’t know where to start?

Taking the time to write out our thoughts can help us clarify what we truly believe, and maybe even figure out our life purpose.

The following journal prompts are designed to help you clarify your thoughts, perspective, and desires. They are organized into four overarching categories:

Who are you?

What do you want?

What do you know/think you know/what to know?

What is your unique purpose?

Each prompt or group of prompts also comes with a brief explanation for why the prompt was included.

Without further ado, I give you…

THE PROMPTS

Who are you?

1. List the 5 people you spend the most time with, why, and how they’re affecting you — your behaviors, your thoughts, your life.

2. List the top 5 people you admire, and why.

3. Who is your favorite person in all the world and why?

In addition, we don’t just spend time with people we know, or people in real life. We also spend mental time with people we watch on TV, people we read about, or people whose works (books, articles, youtube videos) we consume. Who among these people do you admire most, and why? What are ways you can spend more time with the people you want most to be like? (For me, Desmond Doss is one of my personal heroes, even though I never met him in real life)

4. What is your favorite song/musical piece and why?

5. Or: what music do you regularly listen to and why? How do you feel after listening to it?

It’s important to consider what music you’ve been listening to, and how it affects you. Are your musical choices benefitting or hurting you? What does music mean to you?

6. List your top 5 favorite books/movies, and why.

According to writing coach, Lisa Cron, our brains are wired for story. How do stories resonate with you? What books are you drawn to? What themes do all your favorite books have in common? Redemption? Persistence? Something else?

The stories we consume affect the stories we tell. And we ALL tell stories — about ourselves, our lives, our world. How do your favorite writers see and interpret the world? You may find that it is very similar to the way YOU see and interpret the world, for better or for worse.

7. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?

The famous Alcoholics Anonymous serenity prayer says:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

We can’t always change things about ourselves, but you might be able to change more than you think. What would you like to change about yourself? Why haven’t you done it yet? Is there some step you can take to bring you closer to changing it?

8. What was the most painful thing you ever went through? What did you learn from it?

Pain impresses itself on our memories more than pleasure does.

There’s a reason that C.S. Lewis said:

Pain insists on being heard. God shouts to us in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Pain is often a teacher — for better or for worse. But if you’re anything like me, you don’t really like to think about pain that much. Still, you should ask yourself, at least once in your life, what was the most painful thing you went through? What did you learn from it?

Maybe you can figure out something that you learned, so that you do not waste your pain.

One caveat about this prompt: Do not spend TOO much time on this. It’s not healthy to dwell on negative things for long. Think about this question for a set amount of time, write down your answer, then move on.

Min An; pexels.com

What do you really want?

9. If you didn’t have to worry about money or people’s opinions, what would you do with your life?

10. What was your childhood dream and why? What happened to that dream and why?

11. What about your life makes you miserable? What do you know you need to give up?

12. How do you spend your time? On a weekday? On a weekend?

13. How do you spend your money?

14. Create an ideal budget for your time and money based on percentages (Ex with finances: 10% donations, 40% to live on, 20% to support family, 15% taxes, 10% savings, 5% fun stuff, or something) Why is this your ideal budget?

What you spend your time and money on indicates what things are a priority in your life.

If you want to really get into it, take a week and record (without changing anything) exactly how much time you spend on each activity. Don’t stop if it’s an “atypical” week. Do this for an extra week, if you like, and then look at your results. The answers may surprise you.

Same thing with your financial spending.

You may find that you’re not spending enough time/money on what you truly value. Alternatively, you may find yourself spending time and money on things you never expected, or you don’t want to spend time/money on anymore. In that case, cut those things out, and add in the things you do want.

What do you know/think you know/want to know?

15. What is a book you wish someone would write?

If you can’t write that book, why not? Are you not a good enough writer? Do you not know enough about that topic? In which case, should you be learning more about that topic, or about how to write? Which leads us to the next question…

16. What is the next thing you want to learn? And to what degree?

17. Define the following: Success. Wisdom. Love. Faith. Truth. Courage. Joy

In college, I once spent an entire philosophy class debating the definition of “wisdom.” Turns out, a lot of the words we use all the time and think we understand are not as clearly defined, even in our own minds, as we think they are.

Spend some time clarifying these terms in your own mind. Start with a lengthy definition that includes every caveat you can think of, then try shortening it into a pithy one-liner.

18. What do you think God is like?

If a relational God exists (which I believe He does, but am aware that not every reader may agree), your relationship to Him is the most important relationship in your life. Who do you want God to be? Who do you think God is, irrespective of who you want Him to be? What have others told you about Him? How has your vision of Him been impacted by your experiences?

The way you view God (whether or not He exists, whether or not He is good, kind, relational, loving, etc.) will impact the way you see yourself, others, your life, and the world.

pixabay.com

What is YOUR unique purpose?

19. List all the things you think you SHOULD do, that you don’t want to do.

20. Or the opposite: what you SHOULD NOT do, that you do. Why?

Think about what you think you should/should not do, and why you feel that way? Is it culture or conscience that is telling you what you should/should not do?

Or look at this question from another angle: what is keeping you from doing or not doing that thing? Is the block inside or outside of you? What can you do about it? What have you tried doing about it? Have you done anything about it so far?

21. If your house burned to the ground, what are the top 1–3 things you would want to save? (not including people — assume your family is outside already)

This question will tell you what you value, what material goods are important to you? And why?

22. Who can you serve? OR Who do you want to serve?

Life isn’t meant for selfishness. We all can and should help others.

But we aren’t all meant to serve everyone. We all have different gifts and callings.

Just because your buddy is going to work with orphans in Kenya, doesn’t mean that’s YOUR purpose in life. Maybe you don’t feel a connection with orphans. Maybe you’re allergic to sun.

A human body is composed of many cells. White blood cells eat foreign invaders. Red blood cells transport oxygen and CO2. Muscle cells contract so the body can move. Neurons (brain cells) pass electric signals through the brain and down to the body. They all do different, but necessary, functions.

You may be an extrovert. Maybe you’d like to serve international students who need a warm meal and a guide to their new environment.

Or you may be particularly tender-hearted toward low-income families, and that’s who you want to serve.

Look at your life experience, your talents and abilities, and who your heart feels touched or softened toward. Look at the opposite — messages you may have internalized about who you should care about, but you really don’t. Then, maybe look for a way to start serving the people you are drawn to.

Public Domain Pictures; pixabay..com

How to use the above prompts

Pick a few of these prompts — the ones that resonate the most with you — and get started.

If you’re just a beginning journaler, or you’re not at all sure about all of this, I suggest you take 15 minutes and do one. If you have time, or want to challenge yourself more, take an hour and write on 2 or more of these prompts.

You can also try answering each prompt twice: Once using stream of consciousness, without censoring yourself. Then try it again, this time thoughtfully and deliberately — and erase or delete as you like.

Do you see a difference between the two answers? Is your subconscious telling you something your conscious mind doesn’t want to hear?

Another thing you can do if you want to go deeper on any of these questions is to ask “why” and keep asking “why” until you feel satisfied with the answer.

Warning:

If at any point you start to feel hopelessly confused and distressed, cut bait. These prompts are designed to help you clarify your perspective, not mentally torture yourself. If it feels like torture, stop it.

Additionally, don’t spend ALL your time writing through these prompts. Maybe take a few hours one day and go through the prompts that you feel would be most relevant, then throughout the week or month, touch base with your written answers that you’ve discovered.

It’s not healthy to be overly introspective all the time. That’s called rumination. At some point, you need to take all you’ve thought about and learned, and put it to work — act, do, go!

Last but not least, be honest

However you decide to write, do your best to write honestly. This exercise is to help you. If you tried and don’t find it helpful, stop. If you’re only going to lie to yourself, stop.

But if you do choose to give it a try, give it an honest try. Burn your journal later if you have to, just get it out, at least once.

As Fyodor Dostoyevsky said:

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. — The Brothers Karamazov

In conclusion

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

May these prompts help you find your meaning.

Tirachard Kumtanom; Pexels.com

Thank you for reading

Are there any other prompts you would add to this list?

If you gave this a try, I’d love to hear how it went and if this was helpful to you! Feel free to share your answers to any of these prompts. And if any of your answers to the above questions turn into Medium articles, let me know, I’d love to read and support them 😊 Feel free to comment below or email me at [email protected]

0 notes

fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

Text

My Not-So-Secret Recipe for Cultivating Adult Friendships

http://fashion-trendin.com/my-not-so-secret-recipe-for-cultivating-adult-friendships/

My Not-So-Secret Recipe for Cultivating Adult Friendships

t’s 8 p.m. on a Friday night and my husband is cursing at a pot of pasta. A few feet away, perched on a sagging IKEA couch, my ex-roommate’s ex-lover is planning a backpacking trip with my high school theater camp buddy’s husband’s college friend. Behind them, a drag king comes in late from “genderqueer jiu jitsu” and hugs a 10th grade English teacher, returning her copy of The Body is Not an Apology. An ex-coworker from who-knows-how-many-jobs-ago is pouring more wine for the previously mentioned high school theater camp buddy while asking to join her blacksmithing class, while another ex-coworker is snuggled up in an armchair with an actor I once directed in a touring production of Romeo and Juliet. I am setting the table with my grandmother’s good silver and all is right with the world. Welcome to Frambly Dinner.

“Frambly” is the term we came up with to describe our family of chosen friends and the brambly way we all ended up entwined, but trust me, this shorthand is the only formality. I’ve been hosting this dinner party with my husband for nearly three years now, and what started as a “writers group” (guess how much writing we did?) has morphed into something I think many people, millennials especially, find as elusive as the rest of the American Dream: warm, reliable community.

My grandparents — all four of them — were friends for years before they got married and started having kids (two of which would eventually marry each other and have me). When you look at pictures of my mother’s Bat Mitzvah, my dad’s parents are there, dancing in the background. I remember one of my grandfathers giving me a hug at the other’s funeral and saying, “You lost a good friend, Kiddo,” which struck me as odd, even at 10 years old, since they had known each other far longer than I’d been alive. He was the one who had lost a good friend.

When I moved across the country after college graduation, I took many of my grandparents’ things with me — things that belonged in other kitchens, in other eras. Even though I knew almost no one in California, table service for 10 still felt like a necessity. It was a way of carrying their legacy with me, even though I didn’t yet know how to bring it to life. When I met a red-headed bartender who loved to cook as much as I did, I decided to stay. We cooked our favorite recipes for each other, and many of mine (the desserts, mostly) came out of inherited old cookbooks that were peppered with advice to the wife, the hostess, for whom every meal is an opportunity for social graces and tabletop diplomacy.

Now, if you ever happen to move to a new city and worry about making friends, I can promise you this: If you date a bartender, move in with a burlesque performer, and get a job at a Shakespeare theater, you will quite suddenly be surrounded by a wealth of interesting people. And if you feed those people regularly and well, you will sit down to dinner one day and notice that not only do you now have actual friends, but they feel a bit like family, too. And although this wild assembly of bohemian roustabouts is hardly the stuff of a Rockwell Thanksgiving, you might realize what I did: those pearls-in-the-kitchen Bettys from the cookbooks were on to something.

The friendships that buoyed my grandparents’ lives were founded at their synagogue. By the time my brother and I came along, they’d been known as “The Card Club” for several decades. The group was eight couples in total, that got together once a month and had dinner before the husbands played poker and the ladies played dominos. The hosting rotated from house to house, but both my mother and I have strong memories of ironing napkins, polishing the good silverware, and arranging trays of nuts and candies for when The Card Club was coming over.

But much as I admire The Card Club, I worry that it’s not a replicable model for modern friendships. In fact, millennials report feeling lonelier than older generations and, if the myriad essays on the topic are to be believed, making and keeping adult friendships hasn’t come as easily as many of us expected. Perhaps because an economy reliant on freelancing, gigs and side hustles doesn’t exactly encourage workplace friendships; or because we’re less likely than any previous generation to belong to a formal religious organization. And since we’re waiting longer to have kids, if we have them at all, we’re not making PTA alliances or bonding over a shared flask at the elementary school rendition of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” either.

To put it bluntly: No one is going to make our friendships for us. But if we’re as anxious, broke and lonely as the internet suggests, battling our imposter syndrome in increasingly tiny apartments (as the stats say we are), then maybe that’s exactly why we need to resurrect and reform an oft-forgotten social relic: the dinner party. It’s time to stop letting an antiquated idea of “the perfect host” get in the way of our ability to create space for our community and nurture lifelong friendships.

When asked what brought me to California, I often quip that moving across the country for no reason seemed like the kind of thing one should do in their twenties, but the truth is, I was grieving. The price paid for such a close loving family (my dad’s parents lived two miles in one direction, my mom’s two miles in the other) was that after burying six people in ten years, there wasn’t a street I could drive down or a place I could go that didn’t remind me of someone I had lost. I had grown up with a minimum of 13 people around my grandmother’s table for Shabbat Dinner every Friday night, and I didn’t have any faith at the time that I would ever feel that same sense of joy and peace as those nights brought.

The first few times hosting were stressful. I worried that the food wasn’t good enough. I worried that the apartment wasn’t big enough. I worried that my goal of being a good host wasn’t feminist enough. The first time felt like I was playing dress up in someone else’s heels, but this weekly time set aside for sharing food with friends is something I now cherish beyond measure, and I slowly realized that the feeling I was missing from Shabbat dinners and that I envied from The Card Club nights was something I could create for myself, but not by myself. So I invited people in. And even if it sounds cheesy, I want to invite you in too. I want to invite you to create your own Frambly Dinner, and I’ve outlined my best tips below to help get you started. You don’t need matching napkins or a spotless house or even a dining room. All you need is a few people you’d like to spend more time with, and a willingness to invite them in.

Just Try It Out

You don’t have to commit to hosting a weekly or even monthly dinner party. Just try one and see how it goes. Think of it less like a “dinner party” and more like just having some friends over. If you can get over this first fear, everything will come easier.

If You Plan It, They Will Come

I work three jobs and so does my husband. But Friday nights are sacrosanct. The beauty of hosting regularly is that we never have to worry about when we’re going to make time to see our friends. Celebrating birthdays, promotions, holidays, etc., are all simple and genuine: just add a toast or a cake. No one has to stress about FOMO because if you miss it this week, there’s always next week. But I’ve found that the people who value this like we do continue to block out their Fridays for the Frambly.

You Don’t Need a Table

Our apartment features one room to serve as kitchen, living room and dining room. It’s not big. Most of the time, we set out platters of food on the kitchen counter and everyone helps themselves to a plate before perching on the couch, armchairs, footstools or on pillows around the coffee table. If you wait until you have a proper dining room table to try your hand at hosting, you will miss out on years of friendship.

Keep It Simple

Give a half hour window for when folks should arrive and then forget about the clock. Serve everything family style. Pad your menu with lots of veggies — they’re inexpensive, colorful and hardly anyone is allergic. Don’t let the last minute cancellation or additional guest ruffle your feathers. Don’t make a seating chart. Don’t plan dessert if you don’t want to — you can always just offer tea or send someone to the corner store for Ben and Jerry’s.

Let People Help

Ask them to bring drinks, or something to contribute to a cheese plate in case dinner is a bit late. Or to pick up some cookies on their way over. Let them come early and help cook if they want. Let them tackle some the dishes. Let them pitch in. Remember, you’re building a family, not running a restaurant.

Just Clean the Bathroom

You can fake everything else and no one cares anyway.

But here’s the biggest secret:

It’s Not Actually About the Food

I’m a good cook. My husband is incredible. But what I’m reminded of on nights when we tell the Frambly that we just can’t handle the cooking that Friday and we all pitch in for some pizza instead, is that the food is just the excuse for getting together. The real nourishment comes from knowing that there is a time and a place where we will be welcomed and loved no matter what. And carving that space out in this world is the true art of hosting.

Molly Conway is a playwright and writer living in Oakland, California. You can follow her on Instagram @moxiequinn for periodic updates about her garden and Frambly Dinner. She has yet to finish a cup of tea while it is still hot.

Illustrations by Alec Doherty.

0 notes