No worries on late reply. No obligation to reply at all, really! Really glad to hear your surgery went well and I hope your day is just as lovely :)

Cheers! <3

That sounds so similar to so many stories I’ve heard! The ADHD symptoms are so similar to symptoms neurotypical people also experience, it just impacts our (people with ADHD) lives so much more, so it’s no surprise it goes undiagnosed for so long. It’s really easy to assume you’re normal especially when you get good grades in elementary school as is the case most of the time with ADHD it seems.

And women just in general have less research to help back up the diagnosis!

I feel like we are basically the same hahaha. I’m a lil freak but as far as monogamy goes im very basic but im also surrounded by people in poly/open relationships. I get asked frequently whether my partner and I are open hahaha, it’s a really good compliment tho!

You may be onto something with the ADHD thing. I find neurodivergent folks tend to find each other, and I’ve been diagnosed ASD (previously Aspergers) since I was 6 years old, but I’ve watched many friends be diagnosed as we get older lol, so there’s some merit to that thought.

Oh man I love birds! You two sound so solid and really cool, just so you know!!

All of that sounds just lovely. And I totally get missing being alone/independent and how with the right partner and living conditions you can still get that :)

As for the attention on my part, my partner doesn’t mind it when I flirt with friends because they know we are monogamous so it’s all just for fun, but it does help me get the attention I so desperately need :P

Just gonna say you have now encountered one. When I was single I was very big on consent, getting tested, and using condoms. Was very sexually active in my late teens (still am but LT relationship) and I never had an STI scare.

I think you should keep asking for consent/still tests and using condoms because women are also rewiring their brains to forget a lot of toxic shit just like you are. They’ll get there eventually. Women like me are out there, I think maybe less terminally online though.

Anytime somebody’s talking about someone with a high or low social value my brain fuckin turns off lmao it’s so dumb. Connection is what we should be seeking. Social media, and by extension online dating, has poisoned a lot of people’s brains.

My advice, don’t listen to these people and hold strong in your values and you will eventually sift through the shit and find somebody you have a connection with who finds it refreshing that youre honest or swap tests or ask for consent.

Yeah that’s something I think women are slowly learning how to rewire their brains around because, just like how popular culture shaped how men approached women, the same popular culture (and internalized misogyny) taught women that asking for consent is not sexy.

This appears to be changing from what I’ve read in various comments on audio porn geared towards women and also just from conversation with other women. I totally used to think asking for consent “ruined the mood”, and now with more knowledge I think there are many ways to ask for consent in a sexy way.

My favourite is to play a slight d/s game and make someone tell me what they want using their words (i also like it used on me). It’s a bit of a tease but people like it. And you get enthusiastic consent (I consider begging to be pretty enthusiastic).

I think these women who are saying it ruined the mood have some shit to work through, because you should be encouraged to ask for consent.

I don’t think that’s greedy, I think that’s pretty normal.

I need to see how a person interacts in conversation to be attracted to them, as i am far more attracted to mannerisms and values than looks. A cute face is great, I couldn’t care much about body as long as a person is relatively healthy (this is a very broad range for me).

I have moments where I miss the flirting and the attention, but I don’t miss the loneliness…greener grass and all that.

Story of my LIFE until I met my current partner

Well shit

That’s literally who I thought about and I’m so glad someone mentioned it. He’s a freakishly smart dude.

This is more embarrassing than just not responding at this point

Ok yeah y’all must’ve had some really bad luck meeting people or something because we have a really big queer community here. That sucks, sorry about that.

If your friend ends up having to coming back here for cost reasons or anything (hopefully they get to stay where they want), let them know that the punk/alt and the art scenes here are quite accepting. Things like the punk rock flea market are always filled with queer people.

MB can be a crapshoot tho. Rural is all trash, the City can be really good tho if you’re in the right scenes. Everyone’s experience is different tho I guess. Same as always.

Sorry for the derail, hope your day is nice!

Well I’m sorry those you met didn’t seem to be as queer-friendly as you had hoped. If you ever come to MB, feel free to shoot me a message and I can introduce you to some people that will hopefully change your experience!

I’m thinking more provincially. If you lived in ON, I could see it not being more LGBTQ friendly, but I’m in MB which historically is more socially left than other provinces, save for maybe BC.

Everything is so far apart that this kind of thing varies so much across different provinces and cities or rural/metro areas.

I wish I could see more info on the study but I can’t see a link in the article to the actual study.

I’m very curious to see how their sample was chosen, whether this is America-or even Colorado-specific (study was performed by the university of Colorado). I wonder what kind of distribution they have of people from different states, if at all. I mean, it was less than 1000 people so knowing what population they are testing is important, especially to my “it may be regional” suspicion.

I say this because none of this judgement about cat men being rejected because they are viewed as more feminine is familiar to me and I really truly think that this study is quite american-biased because that sounds like a lot of rhetoric that comes out of America that really doesn’t bleed much into Canada.

Perhaps because Canada is a lot more LGBTQ friendly in general, people here have strayed further away from the femininity=bad rhetoric that is so ingrained in America and so women here perhaps don’t see that connection as undesirable. I’m curious to see how the exact same study would play out using a Canadian population.

Could be that my province is generally really left-leaning and so maybe women here prefer feminine men, and it could be a regional thing on my side.

Activities, yes! Shows you have interests/a personality

You said statistically but provided an anecdote. Is this statistically based on your experience in your specific area or do you have actual stats to back this up?

Because I’ve spoken to lots of women who feel the same way I do. My wonder is whether something else in your profile is attracting women who don’t like cats/prefer dogs (are you extremely active possibly and are looking for somebody super outdoorsy?) perhaps or it could be a fluke, because what I’ve heard/experienced does not align with what you have experienced.

In my experience, the cat pic is a signal that a man understands consent since cat ownership often requires some kind of base understanding of consent lest you get mauled. Could be a regional thing though, maybe that’s not a gauge people use where you are from.

Pics with a pet cat were always green flags, and pics doing an activity

This is so nostalgic, I loved Foxtrot growing up!