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My current boyfriend is an ex coworker and did exactly that! I feel like we’ve been best friends our entire lives. Some people might find extroverted behavior annoying but for us introverts they’re a godsend 😩😭

This may not be the best advice here, but as someone who has struggled with making friends here in America, the one thing I know for certain works is befriending your coworkers. Some of my dearest friends, to this day, are people I met on the job 6 years ago!

This depends entirely on your work environment/climate, but there’s something about shared work stress that makes after hours bonding a lot easier. I know you don’t drink or go to bars due to religious reasons, so this may be more difficult for you. Instead of a bar, maybe propose something fun like laser tag or an escape room after work or for a staff outing!

It’s easier to find shared interests/make friends at that point because you’ll have been working together for at least a little bit, so the initial hurdle of “meeting someone new” has already been taken care of!

Anyway, I said all that to say, start with the people around you. Maybeeee not your neighbors, though, unless they’re having a yard sale/block party.

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It’s exactly like an addiction…one that’s intrinsically reinforced by these communities by their messaging. They always include the tagline “they don’t want you to know this!” and it keeps them in due to FOMO or not wanting to feel stupid. It’s a rough situation.

This is really just an anecdote, and there could have been any number of things that the chicken digested that caused this issue. I need hard, replicable data, which in the absence of, and in abundance of the opposite, I’m forced to hold my stance that soy is harmless.

I’m a woman, but we’re not married. I don’t think he’s ever heard of Joe Rogan, but I personally have seen that name thrown around a lot (though I’ve never listened or watched him). He’s certainly somewhat paranoid, which covid has made worse, but it’s on the weirder side. Like, just today he came home and during a discussion about red velvet cake, he drops the “did you know red food coloring changes your DNA???” And I’m just like…wtf? He said a teacher (who used to be a surgical doctor) told him this, so it must be true. I asked him if the doctor could back it up, and he seemed bewildered that anyone would lie so straight-faced.

I think he takes a lot of things at face value without stopping to check if things are true because they match an internal bias. This is something I’ve been trying to work with him on because his overly trusting nature has gotten him into trouble a few times.

Thank you for this input. I hadn’t considered that, and it is worrying.

Yes! This is actually a discussion I had with him recently. The subject of men’s “empowerment” leaders had come up (Andrew Tate, etc, who thankfully he hasn’t heard of yet), and we talked about how a lot of men who have been/feel ostracized or marginalized are drawn to these “leaders” who prey on their need for guidance. He seemed genuinely surprised when he realized that a lot of men (humans as a whole, really) want to feel like they’re in control of their own lives, and although many of these kinds of influencers start with reasonable takes, they all kind of redirect to the same kind of messaging: “someone or something is trying to take your power from you”. It’s an irresistible message that people are drawn to without realizing it because they can, in some way, see this “loss of power” happening in some form in their own lives.

We talked about what it would benefit these influencers to spread this kind of talk, and he initially didn’t believe it was about money. He argued that if it was about money, why are they offering this information for free? Which led to the engagement = $$$ Adsense dollars talk.

Overall, it was a great discussion but he’s still really adamant on this soybean thing. I don’t know why or where it came from.

Initially I thought this was his concern but he never mentioned anything gender specific, just that humans as a whole shouldn’t eat soy as it’s “not food”…as though it’s plastic or something. I agree that it’s probably a result of the social media telephone game, though. I just wish I could find the original source so I can prepare a good argument

He’s normal. As normal as any of us can be in today’s climate, anyway. Normal, intelligent people are just as susceptible to disinformation as people who aren’t “normal”. Instead of ignoring them as lost causes, I honestly think trying to help loved ones is a better use of my time

Goddamnit. I had no idea Big Dairy was a thing 🤦‍♀️

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