A lot of people kiss their pets or non-human animals in general. I find that very weird. I understand that it is a sign of affection but it seems so off. One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this. Also it seems to be on a level of intimacy to me that I find weird sharing with a pet. Not necessarily romantically or sexually (that would be even more weird and wrong and probably illegal). But it is still “more”. I am not sure whether I can really explain why exactly I find that weird.
Anyway, what is something that is weird to you but not to most other people?
Dancing. Especially freestyle solo dancing like at a club or whatever.
From an objective perspective, it’s very odd.
I get that a lot of people enjoy it, and there are some very skilled couples dances which I get more, but the sort of thing you get at a club or concert is just - strange to me.
I will say anecdotally, my wife has aggressively kissed my dog since she was a puppy. The dog aldo knows we don’t like face licks and will boop my wife on the cheek with her nose repeatedly.
And to answer your question, people are into what they’re into, I just don’t get feet.
You can’t help it when an animal snuggles you! You just can’t deny them the love!! 💖
Animals do lots of physical behaviors to each other, like grooming for fleas or ticks, that seem weird to us, but probably signify affection and closeness to them. They probably don’t just let any old random monkey start picking through their fur, any more than we’d allow some stranger to hold our hand on the subway.
Animals show lots of affection to each other, and they show affection to us. Of course they recognize when we do stuff that shows affection to them. They’d rather have tummy skritches, but they’ll sit still for some kisses.
I kiss my parrot because it is a cultural ritual we have built together. I make smoochy noises at him and he mimics them back to me because he wants to communicate. I kiss his little beak and he supposes this is a thing I must like doing so he starts doing it back. It makes me smile and make happy noises, which he recognizes. Now we have a fun thing we do that means we’re buddies. He trains me to offer up my nose for him to smooch if he makes a specific little whispery sound. His only reward is the opportunity to boop me on the nose with his beak but he evidently finds this incredibly amusing and will occasionally whisper at me relentlessly until I give in. He will let me smooch the back of his head at nighttime because it means he gets to stay up later. His feathers are soft and he smells nice so I like it too.
This was a delightful read that made me smile, thank you for sharing!
I want to echo what Velma said…I recently received an incredibly painful text from my older brother, but your example of how animals love other animals, really grounds me. Im tearing up, but in relief, in awe, and in utter joy. This little anecdote is a great gift. Thanks for sharing!
Animals are easy to love, sometimes easier than loving other humans. Ultimately we all just want to connect, I’m glad I did with you today!
Don’t Artisans “stop hiring humans” sign make more sense now?
There is just something evil and repulsive about humans.
We’re vile.
But sometimes cute also.
I’m stealing that
grab as you please, it’s from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291ET6Py6H8
Hope I’m not ruining the vibe, but it’s a little disconcerting watching him do this positive performance of a happy song while wearing Leon “The Professional” shades…
Oo what kind of parrot? And what country do you guys love birds that much? I want to visit 😁 we have 2, ourselves.
He’s a green cheeked conure. I also have an African Grey who doesn’t like to be smooched. What kind do you have?
Aww I love Greys!! They’re so smart and have such a wide vocabulary.
We sort of happened upon them from a couple who needed to surrender, but a Blue Fronted Amazon and more recently, a Goffin’s Cockatoo.
My Grey is kind of a dummy (or maybe just too smart to perform for my approval) but I love her anyway. She’s the sweetest and loves just hanging out on my shoulder.
I had a Blue Fronted years ago, he was the best boy ever. He was an amazing singer and mimic and loved to cuddle. Thanks for taking in birds that need homes!!
Beautiful. I hope you post a video of your parrot doing the smoochie noises because that’s just perfect…
I too used to think that kissing a cat on it’s head was weird. Then I got a cat.
I will smother my cat in kisses specifically to get the “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME” reaction.
- sports
- religion
sports
And when you tell them how watching (typically) men get sweaty, musky, dirty and aggressive, chasing a ball (or rubbing their half-naked bodies together with one another), how that has some ‘similarities’ to gay porn, how they get really defensive and insecure.
‘N-no, you got it all wrong, I’m not gay! I just like watching athletic men get rough with one another, all pent up, sweaty, needy… I mean uh… Oh yeah, sports! It’s so un-gay, it’s like, looping around itself, with ungayness!’
‘So it’s like canceling the un part out?’
‘Exactly! Wait a minute…’
I really enjoy watching men’s sports with straight men for exactly this reason. We’ll sit around and they’ll talk about how such and such a man spent so much time in the weight room, and he’s been putting on muscle, and he’s low to the ground and explosive, and it’s like, dude you are clearly talking about how bro is caked up from doing squats all offseason, how do you not realize how extremely homoerotic this whole discussion is? I find it cute how flummoxed they get about it when you say something about how the player’s looking cute in those shorts or whatever, but it’s also fun to head down to the women’s sports bars and see the lesbians get all flustered about the women’s sports teams. It’s very different because the women’s sports fans are generally much more willing to be open and honest about how such and such player is so cute or hot or however, and it’s less… lecherous? objectifying? than the men’s fans. It’s a pretty stark cultural difference that enjoy seeing in different fandoms.
Team sports is an expression of latent tribalism in many of us. Might be why you don’t see it.
And most fans of a sport have played it in their youth, so there’s unexpressed longing for lost youth.
It starts as something socialized with your male role models, spreads to your peers at school — and eventually is just another ritual that you can find comfort in via its seasonal predictability — there’s always another game to be played.
Grid iron football is indeed rather homoerotic, but … let’s say ice hockey?
Those ice hockey girlies in the pwhl be kissing on each other and getting married there’s no way you can convince me it isn’t homoerotic.
But that’s all off ice gaysex
Plenty of gay men playing these big, manly, homoerotic sports, and having a grand time!
Most of em are just a little quiet about it, for obvious gay panic reasons. That’s less of a problem as time goes on, but still.
Don’t like sports but have never been a fan of this take. It feels indirectly homophobic (in that you’re saying something that you know is not sexual in nature is gay because you know the other person will view it as a negative or bad thing) and would probably not be taken as much of a joke if it were, say, a gay man watching women’s volleyball and their straight friends harassing him about actually being straight.
Just my two cents, I’m sure it’s fine in the right circles.
I mean, I guess I can see that, but uh… leans over, whispering being forced on a field during phys ed with a bunch of other teenage guys who’s hormones are also raging can, shall we say, awaken things.
So it’s not a ‘haha, gay’ but a ‘😏 gay’ nudge at others, who are themselves usually - in my experience - either at the end of the spectrum: neutral to the thought, or deeply in denial.
The games make no sense to me - what’s the point, ya know? But if I know that I feel a certain way about a guy’s bulge or body, I know I’m 110% not the only one. Voicing the truth can be amusing :3
For me it’s the utter pointless of it. Can this collection of humans push the ball past the other collection of humans? About as relevant as which mouse gets a bit of cheese. Why would I watch or care about the outcome, much less less the second-by-second details of how it came to be?
Wow, that guy throws a ball really really well. Huh, whaddyaknow.
To be fair, the same could be said of all games.
- Which human happens to receive the best collection of dice rolls?
- Which human happens to benefit the most from the shuffled arrangement of cards?
- Which human can move their pieces better than their opponent(s)?
- Which human(s) can push buttons better than the competing human(s)?
I hope you’ve had fun playing a game before, and if so, can at least imagine that it would be interesting to watch top level players of that game accomplish what you couldn’t.
The biggest difference I see with sports is the level of obsession over the game and the assumption that every masculine presenting person shares that obsession.
I think that’s one of my favorite aspects. As I’ve gotten older, it’s hard to find low-stakes social encounters to hang out with my friends. The local women’s soccer team is doing well in the champions league is a good excuse to head out to sit in the summer sun on a wednesday night by the sound.
But my collection of humans hails from a point geographically closer to me than the other collection of humans!
Bro doesn’t know what fun is
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- sports
Partly agreed. I find competitive sports and its fanbase very strange. However, doing sports for the sake of doing sports or for the sake of keeping some physical or mental health feels more natural to me.
Convince me those aren’t the same thing.
I have relatives who unironically refer to the Dallas Cowboys as “God’s Football Team”
:vomit:
How often I tell people I’m not religious I’m a sports fan. They fill the same niche. People like tradition. People like ceremony. People like community. Some people like being able to you know sit in front of a pedophile and have him preach them for a while. I prefer to sit in front of a person hardlining multiple drugs and watch him put a ball through a hoop. Different Strokes for different folks.
I prefer to sit in front of a person hardlining multiple drugs and watch him put a ball through a hoop.
Ooh, kinky!
MMA/ufc the SHOWS fans, turns out the audience can be as conservatives as the fighters, owners themselves, not surprising its all about psychopaths trying to hurt each other.
Sports are fine for like kids’ recreation, but the trillions that are spent on the pro sports industry could go to something better.
not washing their hands after using the bathroom…
I apply the George Carlin process to hand washing. After all when in public I know where my dick has been but that janky faucet and restroom door knob has been touched by every wet handed dipshit who put their hands through the germ infested air dryer in the place.
This is something I especially notice at airports. Depending on which state I’m in the ratio of men washing their hands changes drastically
Well, come on. What states are grosser than others?
Come on, you know it’s the South…
I’m in a building with multiple offices for multiple companies and one of them has a massage place.
Each floor has one set of shared bathrooms for men and women
The masseuse guy goes to the bathroom and I’ve noticed him there multiple times taking a dump, then walking out without washing his hands
And he then massages people all over…
“But I didn’t touch anything dirty.”
Hanta virus splashes have entered the chat.
Or people who flush with the toilet lid open. Gross
EEewww. You win dammit.
One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this.
Cats and dogs (as well as lots of other animals often kept as pets) both tend to lick at those they feel affection toward. Grooming behaviors from animals are typically signs of trust, affection, or shows that they look after you and are trying to protect you.
I figure that most pets very much understand what getting kissed by their human means.
Hahaha yes! They can feel the love 100%
🤗
Evolving cross species social skills is a positive survival trait. It’s not only easy to show that pets understand a lot of what we do but has been deeply studied
Regarding my cat: ahem
If not for kisses, why made of soft??
For cuddles of course.
I would also not do this for a human, I think. Humans are too corrupt at heart, they have to make every sign of affection mean something other than it is.
While animals don’t have jobs, or dumb fears. They just want a cuddle.
What the fuck
One reason is that I doubt whether animals really understand this
You would be objectively wrong on that. It’s been shown that affection to animals fires off the same parts of the brain in them as it does in humans, and delivers the same chemicals.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6826447/
Just because animals can’t communicate like you or me (though I firmly believe pets have a language that you can understand if you own one long enough), it doesn’t mean they don’t have the same feelings of bonding and closeness. Biologically we’re all very similar, so the Oxytocin that we get from being loved is identical to the oxytocin that THEY get when being loved.
Every cat I’ve ever met has a nice little language. It was always possible to tell when they were happy or annoyed at the very least. I love them. I always hope they know I love them.
Thank you for the link. Does the paper reveal anything about kissing specifically? Haven’t had the time to read it yet.
I know that humans and other animals can feel affection for each other and that physical contact, e.g., by stroking, induces a sensation of ‘affective touch’ facilitated by C-tactile fibers. So while kissing itself might induce similar effects by similar pressure force and temperature, I wonder whether it really makes a difference to ‘poking’ your pet with your finger in a similar way. In other words: if the physical sensation is similar, does another animal understand a kiss versus another form of affective touch?Dogs have the ability to read body language. So a gentle behaviour like kissing or cuddling would definitely be perceived differently than an abrupt gesture like poking them.
I doubt whether animals really understand this.
Not in the way you’re thinking of (“my human loves me!”), but they almost certainly understand it as a form of scent-marking (“we are tribe-family”), which is a pretty similar concept.
it seems to be on a level of intimacy to me that I find weird sharing with a pet.
Have you had (m)any pets?
Idk about all pets but dogs absolutely understand it’s a form of affection, they kiss each other too, they’ve been with humans tens of thousands of years… they get it
Cat’s are super social and very smart. They get it too. Hell, even budgies understand it.
Celebrity gossip and worship
Caring about sports. Like they devote what amounts to a part time job watching grown men compete in children’s games. Watching Competitive exercise while they melt into a couch pounding junk food. Watching other people talk about how well they exercised. Discussing daily with their friends and family and coworkers… All about one group of people in a colored shirt moving a ball slightly better than people with a different colored shirt.
When I realized that guys typically need an activity to bond together, sports start to make a lot more sense. Sports are just a catalyst to male friendship. Yeah guys take the sports way too far, but it makes it more fun if there’s an emotional high or low when they watch it.
So many things:
- Shoes inside, but especially on carpet
- On the other end of the spectrum, walking barefoot, but especially outside (I recognize I’m likely the weird one with separate indoor and outdoor slippers)
- Seemingly insult their closest friends and family in specific and personal ways
- Feel comfortable drinking more than a drink or two in public (and/or other intoxicating drugs like cannabis)
That’s all that comes to mind at the moment, but I know I’ve felt that way about many other behaviors. I’ll try to remember to add any others that come to mind in an edit below.
I have tried the “no shoes inside” thing and can’t stand the constant feeling of dirt particles on my bare feet even while I’m walking on the floor behind a swiffer, broom, or mop. I’d rather keep my shoes on and just assume the floor is not 100% clean even when someone has just cleaned it.
But I have a logistics question: I know you have a place for shoes by the front door, but what do you do about the back door? Or in my case the three sliding-glass doors onto balconies that I use daily? Is one supposed to keep going to the front door to get shoes and carrying them through the house? My balconies overhang the street and get a lot of road grime, plus my plants drop leaves etc., so shoes are very necessary out there. And many people have back yards. I’m curious about what you do.
I 100% agree about the feeling of bare feet, which is why I have dedicated indoor slippers that I immediately put on when I take off my shoes.
As for the back door and outside in general, I also have a separate pair of outdoor slippers at every entryway. They are the Crocs on the clock work slip-on specifically.
Huh. 8 can’t wear crocs, they mess up my plantar fascia. The shoes I wear 98%of the time are a version of these sparkly Skechers, with great arch support: https://theflipflopzone.com/products/119631-vinyasa-happy-spring
Oof I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m also glad to hear that you’ve found something that is both fashionable and comfortable for you. Do you think it would be possible to have an additional pair of those sparkly Sketchers for each entry of your domicile so that you could live the “no shoes inside” life?
I’ve tried it but I could’t keep track of which was which, especially when I go out one door, across the big balcony (10 meters) and in the other door, to a different room, which would have another “outdoor” pair but no “indoor” pair sitting there. I would have to put down the watering can, go back around the other way, and back around through the apartment.
I also noticed no difference in floor dirt when I was trying to be strict about it. So it seemed like a lot of attention paid for no payoff, and I stopped.
Oh yeah that does sound annoying. I always reenter from the same place I left and haven’t run into that issue, but I’ve also never had a 10 meter balcony with multiple entry points.
The first thing that comes to mind in that situation would be to get oversized outdoor slippers that could fit the indoor slippers inside. That way you always have the indoor slippers, but you would still need to manage moving the outdoor slippers back to the other door.
I mentioned this in another comment but I’ll somewhat repeat it here. For me personally, it’s not really about cleanliness, but instead it’s about the feeling. Something about wearing shoes inside feels wrong to me, especially on carpet. Even the thought makes me cringe.
I understand the gut-level aspect, even though for me it’s the yucky feeling of bare feet on wood or tile floors. No carpet or rugs in our place, it’s easier for the wheelchair. Which by the way can’t change its wheels when coming in. I tried outdoor shoes but they were disgusting in a week. I’m trying out a habit of stepping barefoot into the room, (from the balcony) picking up my shoes and clapping them outside before putting them back on, rubbing each already-dusty-feeling foot on my leg as I do. We shall see. I’m terrible at consistency.
Slippers. I have a pair of Crocs at the back door and my shoes at the front door.
If you don’t wear shoes inside you tend to track less dirt in so walking barefoot doesn’t feel dirty
By the time I get to my apartment any dust I picked up outdoors (Los Angeles, little mud and no snow) has been lost to the hallway carpet. Meanwhile road grime blows in through every air gap, and the great majority of household dust is generated by indoor life, whether it’s the detritus of our own skin, lint from fabrics, particles of paper, cooking vapors, asthma nebulizer, and even cleaning products. What has made the most difference is using a MERV13 filter in my HVAC and keeping the doors and windows shut except when I go out to my balcony garden to tend to my plants.
Dust =/= dirt. Can you actually feel dust regularly? I can’t but idk maybe I’m used to it or something.
Or maybe I live somewhere with less dust/grime on the wind?
I live in LA by the 405 so probably.
You’re not wrong, but I don’t think this applies to people with shedding pets or small children.
Seemingly insult their closest friends and family in specific and personal ways
I’ll be honest - this is a terrible habit that i’m unlearning myself, and i wouldn’t have ever done it if not for friends and family who normalised it to me.
I totally agree with all the things you listed.
I tried participating when I was younger for similar reasons, but I could never really pull it off like they could and always felt wrong when trying.
In glad my list resonated with you.
If I insult you in a friendly manner, you are a good friend of mine. I would never insult someone like that that I didn’t like.
Example: I play disc golf. Par is usually three. I was playing with my friends and a new guy. I wasn’t having a very good day and told the new guy, “In case you haven’t noticed, four is my favorite number.” And my buddy said, “And six is his second favorite number.” I thought that was hilarious because he is a friend. If he didn’t like me, it could have come across as passive aggressive. It is this context to which I’m referring.
That said, I do have another friend who almost only insults and it does get old.
I think what I struggle with the most is determining what counts as an insult in a friendly manner compared to a non-friendly insult. I personally find it easier for everyone if I avoid any potential insult (except for the very rare scenario where I intend to insult someone I suppose).
My knowledge of disc golf is very limited, so I apologize for not understanding why your favorite number ranking is relevant to the game or how it could be considered funny or insulting based on your relationship with the person you’re speaking with.
I have foot problems that make it painful to walk barefoot for more than about 5 minutes. Less on hard surfaces. More on soft ones. So I have flip flops I use inside and regular shoes for outside. So a different reason, but I do get what you’re saying.
Oof I’m sorry to hear that. I hope your footwear at least helps alleviate your pain.
Shoes inside works fine if you wipe your feet thoroughly on the doormat.
For me it’s less about cleanliness and more about the feeling. Something about wearing shoes inside, and especially on carpet, just feels wrong to me. It doesn’t bother me when other people wear shoes inside, I just find it strange.
