Same here. I am not interested in religion (so not even really atheist), wife is Buddhist doing Buddhist things. Married for 40 years this year, and it’s not an issue.

The smell of wood!

My workshop, where I can be creative or destructive or just tinkering about or hang out with my dog, enjoying my time. Unfortunately, I was just evicted, as the little building will be demolished and replaced by “gentrification”…

That’s what I do, too. However, I did block some communities, mostly meme- or politics related, so I can briefly browse the “all” category once in a while.

Sometime in the 90ies, when i upgraded my modem to 33600 baud and everything started to go lightning fast. You could download a whole megabyte in less than five minutes, on a good day. Mind-blowing!

I can feel you. YouTube is my “tv” and I’ve been watching it for years. But lately the quality of the suggestions has gone completely out of whack, imo. I scroll through the suggestions and find nothing worth watching. Sometimes i try to improve it by hitting ‘not interested’ or ‘don’t suggest this channel’, but it’s not helping.

Maybe Spez has bribed Google to show us rubbish, so we’d return to Reddit?

Something that makes me disappear instantly and teleports me to the pub down the street. Cold beer is better than hot fight.

Because I am so pretty?

Mythbusters, junkyard wars.

If it was me, I would move to France, no doubt. Be aware that you need to pass a language test to obtain permanent residency if you’re under 65. OTOH, if your lady wants to stay in Vermont, that is a very serious argument to consider. You’d both need to be on the same page to jump into an adventure of this magnitude.

I think that i started to feel this in the years of Reagan’s presidency (I lived and worked in Europe in those days). Still a little hidden then, it seems to be blatantly obvious now, they no longer try to hide it.

For important data, I have around 100 GB in an AWS bucket, all encrypted backups (moved away from Dropbox a few years back). It costs me about €5 or 6 per month. Thinking about moving them to a European provider, though not sure where to as yet. Less important data stay local on external disks.

I use a SIP phone service now (zadarma.com). They have an app for Android, and it also works with the SIP clients on my Linux desktop. Can’t give a longtime review of them yet, as i am a Skype “victim” too, but so far so good.

I think there is another messenger called Viber that can call landlines, but it looked a little sketchy to me.

Practice, practice, practice.

Yes, for marketplace and some flea market groups. Most of my friends have moved on, some sadly to WhatsApp, which I refuse to install.

Bissäguet, Merci (Swiss German)
Bitte, Danke (German)
Please, thank you (English)
S’il vous plait, merci (French)
Par favore, grazie (Italian)
Bonvolu, dankon (Esperanto)
Onegaishimasu, Arigatougozaimasu (Japanese)

I understand your thinking. OTOH, if you don’t carry your own weight, you make someone else do it for you, and put them through the same hell you’ve been trying to escape. That’s not fair, either.

If I were you, I would try to take some time off, travel the world on the cheap, and find my feet, maybe even make peace with myself.

Good luck!

You mean a “contact form?” They’re everywhere.