When you subcontract your dyson sphere out to the lowest bidding AI.

Between this and the Subnautica news, it hasn’t been a good year for highly anticipated indi-games going mainstream.

With a democrat behind them frowning disapprovingly but not saying anything.

Ours will be Calvin & Hobbs, Doonesbury, The Far Side and Bloom County.

(We do not speak of Dilbert, the name and all it represents has been stricken from all the monuments, tombs and obelisks in the land.)

Shitty AI generated Dyson Sphere is off-center. Whole thing is going to destabilize and collapse.

I would hate to work in fast food just trying to get through my shitty day for shitty pay and keep getting weird, stupid prank orders so people online can get upvotes.

If you have an interesting life then you can commandeer small talk and make it interesting. It’s an opportunity to introduce other material.

Just reread it without the benefit of knowing your own intentions and think about how it sounds. (Also a great thing to do in conversation.)

The timing is great as I learn my healthcare premiums are likely to go up by over a thousand dollars a month.

Wait… I am almost positive you were my last manager.

This is a “what if we treated our mental states with the same level of normalized priority that we do going to the bathroom” joke.

Gotcha, fixed.

Counterpoint: ya’ll are taking sex too seriously.

I know this is a joke, but I know well from experience that some kids are reading this joke and going “oh shit, what if I accidentally start going YEP YEP YEP the day I actually have sex!”

If you’re not having fun and if you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing and looking awkward or silly, you’re with the wrong person. Go do whatever you want with anyone who consents, but it should NOT be stressful, it’s like the ONE thing we do together where we drop all our guards and be vulnerable and silly with each other. You can’t possibly be naked with someone and not feel a little silly, but you should also feel safe to be silly.

The biggest crime here is that people are actually looking forward to a game that will INEVITABLY be the same GTA slop we’ve been playing since the turn of the goddamn millenium.

Graphics are no longer a selling point, we can make anything look like anything now. Unique gameplay and immersive narratives and interactive mechanics are now the way games stand out. Look how popular far simpler social games are like Repo and the like. look how well a goddamn knockoff of S.T.A.L.K.E.R did (Misery) and it was the most basic survival mechanics and it was made by one person and it looks like it crawled out of a Playstation 2… but it was engaging and addicting because it was trying new ways to do old things.

All that aside, yeah our countries hate unions and hate workers and everyone in power hates you and wants you to die.

This is what a lot of people don’t get about small-talk, and OP’s image touches on it, it’s not about educating someone how trains work (looking at you fellow autists) it’s about playing a short game where you gauge each other’s receptiveness to friendliness or a desire to socialize. If your small-talk partner isn’t receptive, has nothing to say and seems disinterested, you take your leave. You say “Hey I gotta run, see ya around!” and just leave it at that.

(Guys, this is also how you talk to girls you don’t know, it’s literally the entirety of volumes of pickup artist bullshit condensed into one paragraph without any weird games or sexist bullshit. Just make small-talk, see if they want to engage back, AND THEN WALK THE FUCK AWAY if they’re icy to you. If they don’t respond, that doesn’t mean they didn’t hear you, and no you don’t get a second chance in this conversation, you will make it worse if you keep trying to talk to someone not interested. I am shocked how hard this is for so many guys to understand. And fully prepared to piss insecure midwits off with this factual take because it triggers SO many insecure people to talk about how to socialize properly.)

This is a really good way to get hated if you make every chat about some crazy thing that happened in your life, whether or not it’s real.

People like an occasional wild story but if you’re always “commandeering” small talk, people will avoid you. If you want people to actually enjoy hanging out with you, you have to balance this with a lot more asking questions about them, and making them feel equally important to the interaction.

Maybe I should get checked for autism, lol.

Def. do that, but also, you just need more practice whether you’re on the spectrum or not.

You are in your own head too much. You have a lot of ideas about big things that are straining at the seams to share with someone so you’re not making it about “making friendly noises” with a stranger or casual acquaintance.

The good news is there’s a surefire cure to this, but again, it takes practice so you don’t forget how to do this one simple trick to making people like you and make friends who will then want to go on to talk about deep things.

ASK QUESTIONS.

They say “Wow that game last night was wild” and you say “Yah? what was your favorite part?”

They say “I hope the weather clears this weekend” you say… NO, NOT DESCRIBING HOW WEATHER WORKS, you ask “What did you have planned?” and so on.

The key here is to set yourself aside. Make it the “Them Show” and they are the star. You are not going to form a lasting friendship by saying the right things at the right time, you won’t get noticed at work by one awesome chat. You do these things by repetition and consistency. Do not “fast forward” in your mind when they are talking, you have to ACTUALLY LISTEN, and set aside whatever is boiling up in your mind to spill out.

If people start associating you with them being able to be the star for a minute, if you make them feel good about sharing their lives, they will start wanting to spend more time with you.

We’ve done some craaazy shit to plants, yo.

Do the Star Wars aliens count?

I can’t think of any “anthro” characters in Star Wars other than Ewoks and Wookies, which I’m sure there is some niche forum or subreddit out there dedicated to fawning over Chewie’s long, shaggy hair, but not quite what I mean.

Marvel had a few characters but none of them have been introduced in the MCU as “attractive” in any capacity. (They did my girl Wolfsbane wrong.)

But I feel more like this most days.