Shout out to u/Misanthropia for the original post — the hive needed more updated art!
This list is current as of episode 234 (2/10/21)
Desus goes by numerous aliases on the Bodega Boys Podcast. These aliases are based on references to pop culture, sports, and hip-hop. The long and ever-changing list of aliases or "AKAs" are one of the many running gags on the show. During an interview with Method Man on Desus and Mero, Desus explained that the idea for aliases was based on the alter-egos of the rappers in the song "Wu-Gambinos" on the album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... by Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon. (info via Wikipedia)
Desus & Mero no longer record from Milk Studios (moved indefinitely) and have been recording the podcast remotely from home due to the pandemic. Most of the AKA’s now mention social distancing, hot takes on covid and store closures.

Desus

Desus is extremely consistent with his aliases, almost always presenting them in the exact same order and without any exclusions:
Desus Nice — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Desus explains that people started calling him Desus as a play on his government name, "Daniel", and "Jesus", because he worked miracles with people's computers
Young Chipotle — Desus’ original alias, he explains in one podcast that it originates from when he was broke and buying Chipotle was a genuine treat
Pockets stay fat like Terio (Pockets stay fat like 'here we go') — A reference to viral star Terio, a young, obese African American boy whose videos of him dancing launched him to very brief viral fame. Recently, Desus added the more politically correct and kid friendly “here we go”
Eli Litby — A play on Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin
Boutros Boutros Gully — A play on Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the UN, “Gully” being Jamaican Patois for an impoverished area
Slobodan Might-know-ya-bitch — A play on Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia and important player in the Bosnian War
Young Day Party — I believe this was adopted in the summer of 2016 after Desus recounted the story of a day party in D.C., which seemed to invigorate his love for partying during the day
Young Hot Take — He has hot takes, pretty obvious here
Desus H. Fuego — Another moniker to describe his hot (“fuego”) takes on topics
Mr. Nandos with a rando — Nandos is a portuguese chicken restaurant chain which originated in South Africa and is big in the UK and Australia. Rando is slang for random person. Having Nandos with a rando is eating chicken with a random person (credit to u/deweez)
Mr. Mil Novecientos Noventa Y Cuatro en Nueva York — In later episodes Desus rarely adds the “en Nueva York” bit, but it translates to “Mr. 1994 in New York”. "The Knicks team in 1994 made the finals and is a legendary team amongst all Knicks fans who were around at the time. That team got to game 7 of the finals against the Rockets. NYC rallied around that team hard body because that team absolutely embodied NYC to a T with guys like Ewing, Charles Oakley, Mason, Starks, and Derek Harper." (credit to u/Okieant33)
Mikhail Goin-off — derived from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (credit to u/GhettoFob) converged with an allusion to losing ones temper in an act of random violence.
The Jouvert Boss — “Jouvert” is a carnival held in Caribbean/West Indian culture, involving a lot of partying
MC Likkle Gungo Pea — Gungo pea is a type of peas (also known as pigeon peas) often used in Jamaican dishes. Reference to his Jamaican heritage (credit to u/hopelessromcom)
"Pullin' up from 40 with your shorty" — Desus will “pull up”, or make a pass at, your girl even when the odds are slim or unlikely, much like a 40 foot shot in basketball
"Don’t talk to me in the Uber Pool, I don’t know you" — Uber introduced a service where you can share rides with other Uber users for a discounted rate. Desus has expressed his reluctance to engage with strangers when he is using it
The original “my plus one got a plus one so don’t make a fuss son” — When Desus shows up to an event with a girl, he brings two, and he's intimating that the host shouldn’t have a problem with that
Desus Rothstein, the Jamaican Jew — Originated around when Mero began his house search in Bergen County, NJ where a number of wealthy people of Jewish descent live. Desus envisions a version of himself who would fit in there
Jermaine Avocado Toast — Desus has gotten more cultured as a result of their success, and as such he has been able to indulge in things usually enjoyed by privileged white people, a stereotypical example of that being avocado toast. This is Desus’ gentrified, hipster persona
Young PA — Possible reference to the sound of small amount of air being expelled from a loose butthole, which is an impression Mero occasionally does (credit to u/jimsternub). This is also a reference to Brooklyn rapper Young MA.
The Ghost of Mufasa — A reference to Lion King, but beyond that I have no idea why he adopted it. Still hilarious though, and the nickname that most often makes Mero laugh
Young Charcuterie without the coonery — Charcuterie is considered very hip and trendy right now, and Desus is again saying he has a taste for the finer things, but is no longer interested in “coonery”, a derogatory term used to describe stereotypical African American behavior
Chile Limon, the left handed reliever for the Yankee’s (Que lo que?) — A fictional persona that seems to be a Latino version of Dock Ellis, who famously threw a no hitter while high on Acid. Chile Limon is also a popular seasoning/flavor with the Latino community
3 Phone Jones — Desus originally adopted "2 Phone Jones" after he reluctantly bought an iPhone to go with his Samsung Galaxy. He then received a Google Pixel, making it 3 Phone Jones (credit to u/ArtSorr0w)
Desus Ex Machina — A play on the common plot device “deus ex machina”, or “god from the machine” in which an unsolvable problem is suddenly resolved by some unexpected intervention. Desus also used to have a tumblr entitled "Desus Ex Machina" (credit to u/hardcore9)
Jay Chuckles — Revealed in episode 55 to be a reference to a now-defunct shoe store in NYC. Did Desus read this thread?
Stanley Cups — Desus' former rap alias, as revealed in episode 53.
The Human Dr. Bronner’s Label (Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!) — A reference to the concentrated soap Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap, which needs to be diluted. I didn’t quite understand how Desus applied this to himself, but it came from a joke in Episode 51 or 52 about Sean Spicer trying to defray controversy surrounding President Trump's decisions
Dionardo DiTrappio — A play on “Leonardo DiCaprio”, the actor, but referencing “trapping”, a slang for selling drugs.
Mr. 240p because I like my Pino blurry — Desus longs for the days of very low resolution pornography. 240p refers to the resolution, which is extremely low by modern standards
DJ Woolite AKA You're listening to Washed FM up next we got 24 hours of — The host of the fictional station “Washed FM”, a fictional radio station that is sometimes referenced along with “WSMK, Smack City Radio”. Woolite is a brand of fabric softener. Desus said multiple times on the podcast that now that he's single and living alone, he washes his clothes with extra fabric softener. As a kid, his clothes would get washed and be hard as nails. Again, he's got a taste for the finer things in life. (credit to u/Okieant33)
The Curried G.O.A.T. — A double reference to Desus’s Jamaican heritage, where Curried Goat is a popular culinary item, as well as referencing the phrase “G.O.A.T”, short for “greatest of all time”
Desus Spicer — A play on the former White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who is often referenced on Desus & Mero as “spicing up” or “adding spice” to his takes
Jamal Hashburn — A play on Jamal Mashburn, a former NBA player, about Hash
The Bronx Celine Dion — Refers to the fact that Celine Dion is very popular in the Jamaican community, and so Desus is like Celine, but from the Bronx. (credit to u/chefboyardu) This is especially present with foreign and immigrant culture which means he is of mogul or iconic status for the Bronx (credit to u/courtofdacrimsonking)
Wray and Nephew's Nephew — A play on J. Wray and Nephew rum, which has its origins in Jamaica like Desus. Also, Desus drinks a lot, which you probably should have figured out by now. Introduced in episode 58
The Moreno you can't contain-o — A play on "moreno", a Spanish term for someone with dark skin
The Human Meme, Word to Ja — A play on Ja Rule's infamous mistake of believing that the word "meme" is pronounced "may-may"
Young Erewhon — A reference to a bourgeois health food store in LA, which makes this nickname in the vein of "Jermaine Avocado Toast", demonstrating Desus' taste for finer things now. (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1)
The Racist Provocateur — Desus flipped an angry tweet from April 28th 2017, in which someone called him a "racist provocateur" into a new alias
Henrik Bud-qvist — A play on NHL goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who currently plays for the New York Rangers
Nelson Bang-dela — An old alias resurrected in episode 65, a play on South African civil right's icon Nelson Mandela
Sergio Can't-see-me — A play on Sergio Tacchini, an Italian fashion designer and former Tennis player
Vladimir Boofin' — A play on Russian president Vladimir Putin, "boofin" being a reference to smuggling something by sticking it inside one's rectum
The Human Werther's, melting in your mouth — A reference to Werther's Originals, a brand of caramel hard candies favored by old people. Not really sure what this one means otherwise.
Mr. Becks on Deckington — The first time Desus introduced this one, he accidentally said "Mr. Becky's on Deckington" which was an incredible Freudian slip since Desus has been accused of not being into black women, and "Becky" is the stereotypical white woman name in pop culture. This is a reference to Desus always drinking Beck's, a cheap beer he favors along with Heineken. Adding "-ington" to words is New York slang, as Mero explains at some point.
Rikki-Tikki-Squad-bi — A play on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a character from the Jungle Book
Greg "Paaa"-povitch — A very meta play on San Antonio Spur's head coach Greg Popovich and the onomatopoeia of spreading butt cheeks apart (according to Mero)
Morris "Say it with your chest"-nut — A play on actor Morris Chestnut
Mahatma Gone-B — A play on famed pacifist Mahatma Gandi
Not Macka B but I got the cucumber — A reference to a viral video in which Reggae artist Macka B raps about healthy food in his "medical monday" series, Desus is unsurprisingly referencing his penis
The juices are pressed but your boy never is — Being "pressed" means someone is applying pressure to you, and no one would do that to Desus. The juices he is talking about are probably the morning drink he has with lemongrass and cayenne pepper that he makes reference to many times in recent episodes of the podcast.
I am the Art, dammit! — Not sure if this is a reference to anything specific or just a Kanye-esque line a crazed creative might yell out at some point
The Don Dada Ganoush — I believe this is a reference to the Meditteranean dish Baba Ganoush, "Don Dada" is Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player” and a sort-of homophone for "baba"
No more Cup of Noodles — I don't know if this is a reference beyond the fact that Cup of Noodles is a struggle meal and Desus is no longer struggling
The Prince of Peckham — A reference to Peckham, a diverse neighborhood in London
The Fashion Nova Casanova — Fashion Nova is an online clothing retailer that specifically targets curvy women that Desus and Mero reference pejoratively (saying it's for bottle waitresses), Desus is saying here that he excels at seducing these kind of women ("Casanova" is a term of a man who excels at seducing women derived from the name of Italian Giacomo Casanova)
"William H. 5 Cent, 10 Cent, Dolla... Forget the small change, give me the the big money wine" — A reference to Soca Boys song "Dollar Wine (one cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar)" which apparently was super popular in the West Indies. "William H Holla is something Jay-Z used to call himself back in his hey day. It comes from the fact that Bill Gates' full name is William Henry Gates. Jay-Z used to give himself nicknames back in the day. J-Hova caught on but he used the term William H Holla because Jay-Z also coined the phrase "Holla At Me" and "Holla Back" and just shortened it to "Holla". So put the two together and you have William H Holla. He first said it on the song "Stick to the Script" off the Dynasty album. So Desus took it and made it his own." (credit to u/Okieant33)
The only anthem I salute is Dipset — A reference to the ongoing national anthem protests in the NFL, Desus is saying the only anthem he salutes is "Dipset Anthem" by Harlem rap legends The Diplomats
Mister Sauga, Catch me at Square One Top Left. Mans is marved. (Dont cheese me bro) — Finally a Canadian-centric reference, which makes sense given that the Bodega Boys have performed there multiple times. This is a reference to the Square One Shopping Center in Mississauga, Canada (where Desus alleges his mysterious wife and kids live), and "top left" is Greater Toronto Area slang for "truthful" or "seriously". "Mans is marved", means "I'm hungry" in Toronto slang (credit to u/Fortehlulz33)
Trill Rizzuto, holy cow! — A reference to former Yankees player Phil Rizzuto who would later go on to be a commentator, where his trademark expression was "holy cow!"
Mister Soft Palms because all I do is count checks and jerk off — I don't know if this is a reference to anything except Desus bragging about his lifestyle
"We got OJ, uh purple stuff, soda, and it's me! Sunny D!" — A reference to an old Sunny D commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQE3jWYuGiw), and a play on the fact that people likely used to called Desus by the nickname "D", so "it's me! Sunny D" would be like saying "it's me, Desus!". Also kind of ironic since Desus is not a particularly sunny person (cue Dark Desus).
David Yerp-man — A play on David Yurman, an expensive jewelry company, and NYC slang exclamation "yerp"
Desus-expensive, Desus-Red Bottoms, Desus-bloody shoes — A play on a lyric from fellow Bronx native Cardi B taken from her song "Bodak Yellow"
Smo-a-kim Noah — A play on NBA player Joaquim Noah who played for the Knicks
Andrew Coooooool-nanan — A reference to serial killer (most notable for killing Gianni Versace) Andrew Cunanan
The Junior Energy God, come sit down 'pon me charger — Originally just the "Energy God" until Desus realized that that was fellow Jamaican Elephant Man's aliases. I thiiiink this is referring to the phrase "bring the same energy", the idea that if one is saying something behind someone's back, when confronted by the individual they should stick to their original statements. This alias started after the infamous Desus &amp; Mero visit to the Breakfast Club, in which DJ Envy accosted the boys about a joke they made about his wife. Desus &amp; Mero didn't punk out and therefore "brought the same energy". Someone tell me if I'm reaching here.
Call me PetCo cause I got your bitch-on-freeze — A play on words for the dog breed Bichon Frise
The Topic of Gossip in Syosset (Shout out to 11791 ah ah ah) — Syosset (zip code 11791) is a town in Long Island, NY. it's real bougie and suburban so Desus is saying basically he's got reach and is known not just in the hood but in the wealthy burbs too (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Grandpa Joe, When you see Charlie you see me don't touch that golden ticket — A direct reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Grandpa Joe) and Desus's cats name (Charlie)
Dead Eye Desus (Mornin’ Sherrif) — Dead Eye Desus refers to the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The game features a gameplay mechanic called "Dead Eye" that allows the player to slow time to achieve easy head shots and kills. The game is also set in the late 1800's, early 1900's in the old West, which is why Desus typically references a Sheriff after saying Dead Eye Desus. (credit to u/biggak)
Mr. Shopping at StreetEasy with a bad breezy like I'm Yeezy, please believe me — Another one of Desus' tongue twisters, this one is in reference to shopping at StreetEasy, a NYC real estate website with an attractive woman like Kanye West might do
The Black Asiatic who will crack your back like an automatic craftmatic — Added in episode 54 after Desus' continuing gag about "big Black Asiatic men" (often referencing their penises). Here Desus is implying that sex with him (a Black Asiatic man) is very vigorous by saying he will change your posture like a Craftmatic mattress, which is a brand of mattress whose shape and orientation can be controlled electronically
Mr. La Marina in a mesh Merina with a fresh misdemeanor and a cold demeanor — This one is a doozy, but was adopted after Desus mentioned his frequent trips to La Marina (a bar on the water in Manhattan) in episodes released in the summer of 2016. A mesh Merina is a a mesh tank top (I think). The other two parts are self explanatory. Not sure how he always gets this one right without mixing up the words.
The Sheet-Mask Killer (No one could be iller) — A reference to Sheet Masks, a skin care routine some might find to be bougie. "No one could be iller" is a reference to how ODB introduces Ghostface Killah on "Da Mystery of Chessboxin" by Wu Tang Clan (credit to u/atorMMM)
The Black Zack Morris of Port Morris — A take on Zack Morris for his problematic schemes on Saved by the Bell. (credit to u/justic3bon3r) Port Morris is a neighborhood in the Bronx (credit to u/m9rockstar) home of The Bronx Brewery and Bodega Boys Beer
Young KPI — More than likely a reference to the various random office jobs Desus had (KPI = key performance indicator) (credit to u/atorMMM)
Your Personal Desus — Desus sometimes will recite lyrics by Depeche Mode “Personal Jesus” (1989) More than likely this is a play off his main alias (credit to u/justic3bon3r)
The Pelé of Peleton — Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) was a former Brazilian soccer player and considered one of the greats. Desus is an avid Peleton user so much he deems himself the greatest of all time
Your problematic bae — Desus occasionally says problematic things, but you still love him, hence him being your “bae”. He always ends with this one, followed by an exaggerated kissing sound.
*After Desus's last aka he gives some sort of problematic advice sometimes followed by explosions*

Mero

Mero (u/THE_KID_MERO) is far less consistent with his aliases. Depending upon how smacked he is, he will often exclude or repeat some of his aliases. He also adds them far less frequently than Desus.
The Kid Mero — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Mero explained that this alias comes from the fact that his father and uncle wanted to name him "Ramiro", but his mother vetoed it and named him "Joel". His father and uncle continued to call him "Ramiro", which was shortened to "Miro" as a nickname. When Mero started tagging, he changed Miro to Mero because he found E to be a nicer letter to write (credit to u/atorMMM) as well as he just didn't like how the "i" looked. Also tagging the name "Ramiro" that long would get you arrested
The Human Durag Flap — Mero’s original nickname, and a reference to how hood he is and his uncircumcised status, something that gets referenced very often (credit u/ZeddyG2 and u/chandlersokay)
Curve Gotti — A play on “Irv Gotti”, former boss of Murder, Inc. records
Donovan Mcdabb — A play on former NFL player Donovan Mcnabb, in reference to dabbing, which could have two meanings (smoking THC oil or the dance move created by the Migos)
Trizz Khalifa — A play on “Wiz Khalifa”, but substituting the first part of the name with the slang “Trizz”. Usually said in a fake patois, imitating Popcaan's cry of "Fuck Wiz Khalifa!" at a Mixpak event
SKKRRRT Loder — A play on “Kurt Loder” former host on MTV News and editor at Rolling Stone
James St. Fatdick, I'll Ghost on you shorty — Originated right around the premiere of season 4 of Starz hit show "Power", here referencing the main character James St. Patrick, whose street alias is "Ghost"
Tiger Backwoods — A reference to pro golfer Tiger Woods and Mero’s love for smoking backwoods
“I no fucking baby, I fucking man!” — A reference to the viral video that sent friend of the brand Pioladitingancia to fame
“Check the guest list again because my name is definitely on it, and no I’m not stepping to the side while you check! ” — Not so much a nickname but something Mero might have said back in the day when he was broke and had to lie about being on guest lists to get into clubs
CC Dab-bathia — A play on Yankees Starting Pitchers name, CC Sabathia (and close friend of the brand)
Goldman Shm-achs — A variation of the phrase made popular by Bobby Shmurda and a reference to Goldman Sachs.
Mensch Montana — An alias borrowed from French Montana (who is from South Bronx) and popular artist with the Bodega Boys. They have mentioned his classic Mac and Cheese mixtapes numerous times on the podcast. Also this is a nod to his Jewish family connection; Mensch is Yiddish for "good guy." (credit to u/chefboyardu)
The Da-da-da Dad of the year — A play on a lyric from ScHoolboy Qs song "Man of The Year" (credit u/ZeddyG2). Mero already has three Mero Jr’s and the bodega princess, and as far as we can tell is an awesome dad, thus earning such a title. Confirmed to be a ScHoolboy Q reference in episode 56
Been-Smacked Biyombo — A play on “Bismack Biyombo”, a professional basketball player on the Charlotte Hornets
Di-Yayo Maradona — Reference to Argentinean soccer legend Diego Maradona and slang for coke (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Dick-in-ya-bae Mutombo — A play on Dikembe Mutombo, former NBA player. Mero now respects the woman’s agency and asks for permission first before entering
Barlos Santana — A play on famed guitarist Carlos Santana and Xanax bars
The Dominican Don Dada — Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player”, and as we know Mero is of Dominican descent, hence “Dominican Don Dada”. The phrase "Jamaican Don Dada" is used by the character Lennox in the movie "Belly", which is a classic in hip hop culture (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1) He follows this up with "catch me at Locksmith throwing up on myself". Locksmith is a bar on 192nd &amp; Broadway in Inwood, which is a REALLY Dominican NYC neighborhood (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Some variation of "swipe my card again, put the bag over it, there's definitely money on it!" — A reference to a familiar experience for anyone who has been broke, in which you lie and act like it's the store's fault when your card gets declined
Romeo Xantos — A reference to famed Bachata artist and Xanax, Bachata being a dance and music style originating in the Dominican Republic. Also the added "Sooo xanny, lemme black out" is a play on Romeo's adlib "sooo nasty, lemme find out" (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Light-an-L Dutchie "Hello? Is it weed you're looking for?" — Another weed double entendre referencing Lionel Richie and his famous song "Hello"
Papa Sushi, The Dyckman Don — A reference to often-referenced MamaSushi, a fusion sushi restaurant on Dyckman Street in Manhattan
Tom Brazy, your girl got my balls deflated — A boastful play on the Deflategate controversy surrounding Tom Brady and the New England Patriots after the 2014-2015 AFL Championship game
Feel-da-ass Tyson (CONSENSUALLY WITH YOUR PERMISSION) — A play on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson”, a well known physicist
Lil’ Snoozie Vert— A play on the name Lil Uzi Vert. This is also in reference for when Mero actually ‘tapped out’ on Instagram Live
Fry-an-L Messi — A play on Lionel Messi, a famous Argentinian soccer player of Italian descent, and smoking an "L", slang for blunt
Joe Hookah "I dare you! To smoke with me! At MamaSushi!" — A reference to rapper Black Rob's song "I Dare You" that features Joe Hooker on the hook. MamaSushi is a high-end restaurant chain located in New York
Ben Barson my hands are gifted — During the 2016 election cycle, famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson engaged in a brief campaign for the Republican nomination. Mero took to doing impressions of him, exaggerating Carson’s urban upbringing by saying he was “Ben Barson”, in which the “C” was replaced with a “B”, as a Blood gang member would. Unlike Desus, who almost never fumbles his nicknames, Mero has maybe said this one correctly one time
Xaniel Bedingfield — A play on Daniel Bedingfield followed by Mero playing "I Gotta Get Through This" a popular song by the artist Daniel Bedingfield with lyrics that are about Xanax (credit to u/KTTeal)
Some variation of “I’ll open your medicine cabinet and take all of your Benzos” — This is self-referential in two ways: 1. The earlier reference here is to when Mero admitted to Desus that he will unashamedly go through people’s medicine cabinets in order to snoop on their lives and 2. After the boat party story in which Mero got drunk and took some Xanax’s, he added “I’ll take all of your benzos” bit to express how much he enjoys the feeling Benzodiazepines create
The Xandman — This is a play on the musical artist “Scatman John” who was most known for his song “Scatman’s World”, the chorus of which Mero imitates with this name and the accompanying vocalization
Rico Sabroso — Spanish for “Rich Tasty”, but I’m not sure what the reference here is beyond that
Baby Newport — I assume a reference to Newport brand cigarettes, stereotypically popular in urban areas
Niño Brown — A reference to the main character of the film “New Jack City”, in which Wesley Snipes plays a crack dealer named Nino Brown, but pronounced like the Spanish word for "kid", giving it some Latino flavor (credit to u/Okieant33)
The East Tremont Stevie B — East Tremont is a predominately Hispanic area of the Bronx, while Stevie B was a recording artist from the 80’s with some incredible Jheri Curls. Sometimes sings "I want to be the one your Titi is fucking" after
I met Mike Francesca im never gon’ fail — A direct reference from when the Bodega Boys actually met Mike on the last episode on Desus &amp; Mero on Viceland. In translation, this means after finally meeting with the iconic Sports Pope this makes him unstoppable. This is also a reference to Kanye West's song 'Ultralight Beam' where Chance the Rapper says "I met Kanye West, I'm never gonna fail" (credit to u/RemyDWD)
The Plantain Supernova in the Sky — A reference to the Oasis hit “Champagne Supernova”, but changed to reflect Mero’s Dominican heritage, which often uses plantains in its cuisine. Occasionally he will sing an extended version, which goes “One day you will find me, smoking weed on Tremont/in the Plantain Supernova in the sky”. How does he hit these melodies so perfectly every time?
Tom Petty and the Ball Breakers — A play on the rock band name ‘Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’. Mero sings the chorus from Tom Petty’s solo project “Free Fallin’” as “Free Ballin’” suggesting that he feels free doing his Zoom calls without pants
Barmelo Xanthony — An incredible play on the Bodega Boy’s favorite NBA player, Carmelo Xanthony, and Mero’s beloved Xanax’s. (credit to u/terminal-chillness) Most recently, Mero has changed his references to him making sound financial decisions and balancing his portfolio since the interview with Carmelo himself on Desus & Mero on Showtime
Some variation of “If you see me in Target approach me like a bear” — Originates from Mero’s love of getting really high and hanging out in Target. Being high sometimes makes him paranoid, so he doesn’t like people just running up on him. Desus suggested people “approach him diagonally, like you would a bear”. Mero interchanges “bear”, “Ursine Mammal”, and “Oso” (Spanish for “bear”) at random
Benzo the Clown — A problematic clown for kids that ruins birthday parties and not refunding your $50 deposit. Originated on Episode 96, Desus starts talking about rolling up to Mero Jr’s bar mitzvah smacked. (credit to u/outtaspite) Benzo’s antics are normally cut short by Mr. Fun Fun (voiced by Desus) normally ending with the problematic light
I sold fake Lean to your favorite SoundCloud rapper — Not sure this is a specific reference other than the fact that Lean is pretty much a guaranteed accessory for any SoundCloud rapper and Actavis discontinued their codeine/promethazine cough syrup in 2014 due to abuse, so a lot of people are drinking fake Lean.
"Llego el hijo de Tito y Fifa papi"/"The son of Tito and Fifa has arrived, papi — In later episodes, Mero began to include some Spanish phrases at the end of his list of aliases, usually beginning with this phrase and building off of it. When Mero does this he also says "Hassan tira me lo pita" which is slang for "Hassan drop me a beat". Mero is making pretend that he's a DJ on NY's Spanish Radio Station 97.9 La Mega. Mero from here goes on to talk all kinds of shit about how hard and gangster he is. (credit to u/bobbuddha and u/Okieant33)
Please correct me if you have ideas or see mistakes!

Discontinued aliases:
Desus

Young Green Room
Desus Vice
Vice-K Matsuzaka
Kristap Por-sling-dick
The Human Jerry Curl

Mero

Blem de la blem
Young Pap Smear
Metro Bloomin' Onion (credit to u/raybegleiter)
Fry-an-L Messi (Mero at one point said this instead of "Light-an-L Messi", he'll probably go back and forth)
Papi Shampoo
Lucious Lyon-ass nigga
David Trizz-Dale

Cringey cool guy stories.

"You were never really trans": How this sentence hurts trans people, detransitioners, and society as a whole; or the conceptual problem of transgenderism.

As the title states, we as detransitioners face a very peculiar problem. A very recurrent response to any of us saying that transition was not helpful in fixing the distress we felt/feel over some sexual characteristics, or saying that we have found alternative means of alleviating that distress, is this one:
"You were not really trans in the first place."
The purpose of this essay is to explain and showcase why such a statement hurts anyone who has ever suffered from any distress regarding their birth sex. It will also explain why that very sentence exposes a deep rooted problem within the word "transgender" in the first place. So let's get right into it.
First of all, let's quickly talk about why some transgender people feel the need to say this. Generally, the reason is not a concern for truth, it is a concern of personal safety. Transgender people are framed as this group of people who feel distress over their sexual characteristics (or "gender"), and whose only means of healing is to undergo a certain form of transition, whether it is physical or social. When we understand that concept, we can establish why it is vital to say we were never like them. Transgender people value this form of healing at all cost. They believe with all their heart that there is no other solution, and that any other suggestion is tantamount to suggesting they should suffer unnecessarily. There is a deep sense of self-preservation that is present within those words. Suggesting that transition does not alleviate this problem in some cases, and that there are parallel or alternative pathways to heal, is an existential threat. As such, an easy way to completely avoid the threat is to discard it: if detransitioners are not like them, then there is no need to put in question the validity of transition, and in turn, question themselves. It also implicitly might imply that transgender might only be a phase. After all, if detransitioners felt dysphoric during a portion of time, and felt after a while the need to detransition, and might very well heal and present a better life and mental state than they had during transition, surely it might suggest that these feelings might only be temporary. That is a catastrophic insinuation. Is this illumination transgender people go through about their "gender" temporary? Will they regret it one day? It's better not to think about it and further dissociate from these cases. Protection of one's feelings is a strong motivator.
Now, this obviously causes many problems.
The first problem is that this creates a pretty stigmatizing schism. Detransitioners are now framed as idiots, fools who believed they were transgender but mistakenly inflicted changes to their body that they will now regret, perhaps forever. Some changes like SRS do not have a reverse option. This fact alone might already cause enough distress for detransitioners who regret these surgeries. If we were to add this stigma on top, that many conservative-minded, gender critical, feminists and even transgender people perpetuate, this might prove to be harmful to our mental state, if not lethal. As such it is important to realize this schism is harmful to detransitioners.
Now one might not care about the mental state of detransitioners. After all, we are often believed to be "the enemy", able to join the numerous transgender-bashing groups there are out there any second (which is also profoundly harmful to someone's mental state). If that is the case, logic shall be our way to explain why it is not only erroneous to think of it that way, but also profoundly harmful to transgender people themselves.
It goes without saying that stating detransitioners were never trans is a complete lie. Detransitioners have a completely similar story to transgender people: At one point in their lives, they have felt distress over their body characteristics. That they felt something was wrong. That they felt they were born in the wrong body. That this was a mistake they could and should fix. They have felt the need to go to a clinic and be given the means to transition. They may very well have earned a gender dysphoria diagnosis as well. They may have very well enjoyed the feeling hormones and surgeries gave them, if only for a while. They might have felt this euphoric rush about finally finding a sense of self. For all intent and purposes, they were transgender at that given point in time. Arguing against this point is completely fallacious, but also profoundly dangerous for transgender people to raise.
Here is the new problem that is stated with that affirmation: if there are people out there who are not trans, yet have gone through a transition at some point in time and enjoyed it, and still ended up finding out that "they were not trans" and detransition, then who is actually transgender? Could we take any transgender person in the streets and say "that person is not actually trans and will regret transition given a few years"? Could we point at some transgender people and start affirming loud and clear that they are one of the fakers? That is what is implied when you state such a thing. Would transgender people really like a world where people doubt their existence constantly and constantly think they are going through a phase they will regret? The obvious answer might be "no, of course not", but weirdly enough, this is where the discussion gets even weirder. This is where transmedicalists come into the picture. These people are very well aware of the situation that is going on with asserting such a thing. Instead of perhaps looking at the issue objectively, they will do something else, which is to make sure to state that they, themselves, know what constitutes gender dysphoria and will make a conscious effort pointing at who they perceive to be the fakers, both as a protective measure, and a way to soothe the people that may start having the line of questioning I am currently presenting. "Only my experience is the valid one, all these people are not actually trans!" they will claim loud and clear. And for a while, this was the stance I was adopting. I stated numerous times that there were real and fake criterias of being transgender, and that I was part of the "trutrans group", as they call it, and to a transmedicalist reading this essay, they might start thinking there are no real problems stated here, in their view.
That is unfortunately very wrong. Unfortunate in the sense that if we lived in an utopia where we could say, for sure, who and who isn't transgender from biological factors, then all this mess would be fixed entirely. Alas we are very far from that reality. We will go into details as to why such a line of questioning is flawed, and profoundly creates a catastrophic end result for us all.
The transmed position will posit the thesis that the true cause of gender dysphoria is essentially biological and that there is a difference between transgender and non-transgender individuals. At the risk of sounding very transphobic, this needs to be stated, loud and clear, for the people among the transmedicalist position:

There is no science that backs any difference between transgender and non-transgender individuals.

I can already hear the objections raised at me, and perhaps the many labels I am already labelled with, but this needs to be a clear point of discussion so we can move on and reach the truth together. There is currently no paper that has found conclusive evidence of that claim. None whatsoever. Again, objections from the transmedicalist position will raise that there is evidence of a difference in the brain for transgender individuals, and will link some studies denoting such differences. Here is the counter to that line of defense.
Kreukels has redacted a paper titled neuroimaging studies in people with gender incongruence, which goes in details about the existing literature about these established differences. At a first glance, it may seem that this paper does prove the existence of a so called "transgender brain". After all, countless literature is cited here as proof that there seems to be differences. However, upon further reading, one thing becomes quite clear, and the paper states it itself.

It is clear that there is not a complete sex reversal in brain structures in people with gender incongruence. This latter point is also supported by the GM study in adolescents with GI, which shows that their volumes are, at a whole brain level, in line with their natal sex (Hoekzema et al., 2015). [...]
Reviewing the literature on the effects of cross-sex hormone treatment, the brain is astonishingly understudied compared to other body systems and organs (Gooren et al., 2015), despite the fact that the brain is abundant with androgen (Puy et al., 1995) and oestrogen (Osterlund et al., 2000) receptors. If the brain is already sensitive to differences in endogenous levels of sex hormones during the menstrual cycle (Protopopescu et al., 2008) and puberty (Peper et al., 2009), one could imagine that the administration of pharmacological doses of these hormones will have an effect as well. Indeed, there are studies that show important effects on the brain of cross-sex hormone treatment. After no more than seven months of cross-sex hormone treatment, we see decreased intracranial brain volume in MtF compared to controls (Hulshoff Pol et al., 2006), a generalized decrease in CTh and an expansion of the ventricles (Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2014). After androgenization, an increase in intracranial volume and hypothalamus volumes (Hulshoff Pol et al., 2006) and increases in CTh have been found in FtM (Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2014). Suppression of androgens and/or the deleterious effects of estradiol may induce the decreases in MtF, whereas increases in FtM may be the result of anabolic effects of testosterone (Guillamon, 2014, WPATH Bangkok; Guillamon et al., submitted; Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2014). These ideas are, at least with respect to estradiol, supported by the detrimental effects on the morphology of the brain of post-menopausal substitution therapy (Casanova et al., 2011; Resnick et al., 2009). [...]
Not all children with GI become adolescents or adults with GI, see Ristori & Steensma elsewhere in this special issue, and not all adults with GI have been children with GI. Some have an onset of GI feelings in early childhood, whereas others may have an onset of these feelings during or after puberty (Nieder et al., 2011)

Brain sex thus seems to be a very dubious theory, one that is still pushed to this day as constant proof and rationale for that position. It is a myth.
Worst of all, the validity of such a theory is irrelevant in regards to the ethical side of that position. Indeed, if it were to be found that there was a way of doing such a thing as state on a biological level that someone is indeed transgender, we are left with a disastrous loophole on our hands. If someone was to come forward as feeling distress over their sex or gender, and were found to not be biologically transgender, what should we do? Should we tell them that they are faking it? That they cannot receive any transgender care whatsoever, left on their own to solve their incongruous feelings? That could potentially cause a tragic situation where individuals are pushed to extremely dangerous mental states where they possibly could end their own life. After all, numerous studies presented by transgender activists seem to reflect that the availability of transition presents a significant decrease in suicide attempts. Do we really want to open that Pandora's Box? Do we want to expose all transgender people to the existential threat that is discovering that there is no scientific backing to how they feel? Thankfully, it is not all so grim as it seems. It is fairly obvious that transgender people present other vectors that lead them to pursue transition, whether it is psychological, social, sociological, and so on. One of the most prevalent and most brought up reason by some anti-transgender groups is sexual trauma. Papers seem to back up this theory, as for example stated in Prevalence of Childhood Trauma in a Clinical Population of Transsexual People . As such, the transmedicalist position purposefully puts a blind eye on all the other reasons of why someone may feel awful about the sex they were born as, and, as such, is profoundly illogical.
A lot of these vectors are talked about in this sub as well as other places of the internet, from transitioned and detransitioned individuals alike. Those are vital to explore, for everyone involved. Everyone benefits from this, yet it is seen as nonsense from the transmedicalist position, and transphobic according to the rest of the transgender population, to state there might be other vectors than an innate one.
This is where detransitioners come in, and why it is important to state that they were really trans. The fact of the matter is that detransitioners have addressed their dysphoric feelings by directly addressing the vectors that justified transition in their mind in the first place. That is apparent from the quasi-totality of detransitioner testimonies you will ever find. To take my own example, the vectors that justified a transition in my mind were, to name two, trauma (bullied a lot, one of them for being male, hence I developed a shame of being male) and rebellion (perceived that women had it better, frustration of being rejected by women, hence I developed a need to transition as rejection of the downsides of being a man). You will find many, many other kinds of vectors presented in these stories, vectors that are vital to understand and explore. Addressing these vectors is not a transphobic act. It actually is vital. This is what saved detransitioners from ever-chasing the chimera of solving all of their problems using hormones and surgeries, and forced them to do a deep dive in their own psyche, and in the end, save and heal themselves. It also does not mean that addressing those things would forcefully mean detransition for transgender people. It simply means that the dysphoria might have more than an innate vector. It is important for everyone involved to recognize that. Transgender people and detransitioned people lived through the exact same thing: they felt distress about their birth sex, and sought answers for their wounds. We are the same. There is absolutely no difference.
I have thus established the parallel between our experiences, which raises a final question in my mind: is the term transgender all that well chosen, in the end?
We could very well debate here the validity of gender, how it is impossible to change one's sex, and all these thoughts that may arise from such a question, but that is not the purpose of this essay. Rather, the question I am asking is this one. As I demonstrated in this essay, there is a very clear schism forming between transgender people and detransitioners, yet it is clear that they share way more in common than they differ. As such, would it really be judicious to separate us according to whether or not we are performing another gender, or under medical treatment in order to sexualize our bodies like the opposite sex, or at the very least desexualize our own? Is it really all that fair to talk about a cis/trans dichotomy, rather than those who feel or have ever felt distress over their birth sex, which happens to be a bigger portion of the population than those who are transgender?
Perhaps the key here would be to focus on the fact we all shared dysphoria over our birth sex. That way, we can properly start talking about the differing causes for such a phenomenon, and the various strategies that seem to work to take care of the problem, all in the name of better taking care of our mental troubles. I am still thinking about such terms but am not satisfied with the current ones I found or came up with. As such, feel free to suggest any of those in the comments.
That is all. Thank you very much for going through this very lengthy essay. May peace be with you.

Over 150 Artists Call for Leon Black’s Removal From MoMA’s Board Over Jeffrey Epstein Financial Ties

Over 150 Artists Call for Leon Black’s Removal From MoMA’s Board Over Jeffrey Epstein Financial Ties
In a series of statements, artists including Nan Goldin, Michael Rakowitz, Xaviera Simmons, and Hito Steyerl have urged the Museum of Modern Art to address Black’s presence on its board. by Hakim Bishara
Link to article
Dozens of artists, art workers, and activist groups are calling on the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York to separate itself from its chairman, billionaire Leon Black. Michael Rakowitz, Xaviera Simmons, Hito Steyrel, Nan Goldin, Nikki Columbus, Guerrilla Girls, MoMA Divest, and Decolonize This Place are among more than 150 art world figures urging Black’s removal over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Last week, Black announced his plans to step down as CEO of his private equity firm Apollo Global Management after an independent report found that he paid Epstein $158 million in fees between 2012 and 2017. The report, conducted by the law firm Dechert, found no evidence that Black had participated in Epstein’s criminal conduct, but revealed the extent of the close financial ties between the two. According to the report, Epstein advised Black on trust and estate planning, tax issues, and matters related to the billionaire’s vast art collection. Epstein’s services saved Black around $2 billion in taxes, the report says. Meanwhile, Black continues to serve as the chairman of MoMA’s board of trustees, a role he assumed in 2018, despite mounting calls for his removal. The New York Times reported that in an email to MoMA trustees last week, Black showed no sign of stepping down, telling his colleagues: “I look forward to seeing you at our February board meeting.”
Now, artists are amping up pressure on the New York museum, with a series of statements provided to Hyperallergic by leading artists and art groups urging MoMA to address Black’s presence on its board. (Each of the four statements is reproduced, in full, at the closing of this article.)
“We, as artists and art workers, support the removal of Leon Black from the board of MoMA for reasons that have already been stated by many others,” says one statement signed by 154 artists and art workers. “However, this should be considered the bare minimum.”
Signatories include Andrea Fraser, Nikki Columbus, Baseera Khan, Noah Fischer, Paddy Johnson, William Powhida, Guerrilla Girls, the Dismantle NOMA collective, and Artists For Workers. The list also includes Iraqi artists Ali Eyal and Ali Yass, who participated in the 2019-2020 MoMA PS1 exhibition Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011.
“Beyond [Black’s] removal, we must think seriously about a collective exit from art’s imbrication in toxic philanthropy and structures of oppression, so that we don’t have to have the same conversations over and over, one board member at a time,” the statement continues. It concludes:
This thinking can only catalyze action once we state plainly: We do not need this money. Museums and other arts institutions must pursue alternative models, cooperative structures, Land Back initiatives, reparations, and additional ideas that constitute an abolitionist approach toward the arts and arts patronage, so that they align with the egalitarian principles that drew us to art in the first place.
The group MoMA Divest, which crashed a VIP preview at MoMA in 2019 before it reopened its refurbished galleries to demand prison divestment and staged a protest at MoMA PS1 on the closing day of Theater of Operations, provided Hyperallergic with a separate statement that addresses Black’s other business dealings, which include ownership of Constellis (formerly Blackwater), a private military company that operated in Iraq.
“Recent confirmations of MoMA Board of Trustees Chair Leon Black’s deep financial and personal connections to Jeffrey Epstein underline the problems that MoMA and other major museum boards face and have failed to reckon with in any meaningful way,” MoMA Divest’s statement reads. “We note that Leon Black’s corruption extends far as his ‘investment’ firm is also the owner of Constellis, formerly known as Blackwater, a private military firm which was banned from operating in Iraq after its staff were charged with war crimes (when MoMA Divest peacefully protested this last year in solidarity with exhibiting artist Ali Yass, PS1 responded by calling NYPD). Those war criminals were part of the recent spate of pardons by Trump.”
The group continues with criticism of other billionaires on MoMA’s board:
Leon Black is not an anomaly. Five MoMA board members — [Steven] Tananbaum, [Glenn] Dubin, [Steven] Cohen, [Leon] Black, [Larry] Fink — have been identified and targeted by different groups over the last year for their ties to war, racist prison and border enforcement systems, vulture fund exploitation, gentrification and displacement of the poor, extractivism and environmental degradation, and patriarchal forms of violence. Board members also have ties and donate to the NYPD Police Foundation.
In short, the rot is at the core of the institution, which includes PS1. MoMA/PS1 directors and administrators have quietly taken the dirty money in the name of art and made empty curatorial gestures towards political issues.
“Nothing short of a major reconstitution of the board, a change of directors, a public reckoning, and a reimagining of the institutional and curatorial mission of the museum is acceptable,” the group adds.
In a statement titled “Fuck MoMA. An Open Call to Action,” activist group Decolonize This Place writes: “We are tired of the same shit making news over and over. It has become a banal routine. One place after another. Another institution, another oligarch artwashing their death-dealing profits, with womxn bearing the brunt of it all. This is not a PR crisis, or just a matter of toxic philanthropy. MoMA is a frontline of gendered and racialized class war, and we all have a responsibility to act.” The group previously led months-long protests against the Whitney Museum’s vice-chair Warren Kanders regarding his ownership of a tear gas manufacturer. In the face of public pressure, Kanders resigned from his post on the Whitney board in the summer of 2019, and his company has since announced it will exit the tear gas trade. “Letters, pleas, and backroom deals are not enough,” DTP continues. “After the removal of Kanders from the Whitney, after the George Floyd rebellion, after the open declaration of war by Fascists seeking to salvage white heteropatriarchal rule, we must do and demand more.”
“Board members are not the problem,” The activists add. “They only make the problem visible. MoMA in its entirety is the problem. Perhaps it’s time to abolish MoMA.”
In a separate statement sent to Hyperallergic, artist Hito Steyerl wrote: “Let’s face it: by commissioning an art lubricated 2bio USD tax avoidance scheme from suspected pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, chairman of the board Leon Black created a major reputational disaster for MoMA.”
Responding to Dechert LLP’s report, which clears Black of any wrongdoing, Steyerl wrote: “The description of [Black’s] activities positively sounds like a caricature of QAnon´s most delusional fairy tales about elite cabals — except that the NYT vouches for its facticity. The result: at present parts of MoMA’s board come across like an unhinged and depraved version of Marie Antoinette’s feudal court.”
Steyerl continued with thoughts about the wider imprecations of MoMA’s continued silence, writing: The message sent by the museum is devastating. Apparently, it seems to care less about its reputational damage than Black’s own company which forced him to leave its post as CEO. This is a panicked and shortsighted reaction to say the least.
The damage created not only for MoMA but for the art world in general will most probably impact societies’ views on art for years to come. There are tragic historical precedents. Similar — if invented — stories were used by 20es and early 30es right-wingers in Germany to pit parts of the population not only against modern art but more importantly also against different minorities, with well known and disastrous consequences. The sad truth is: contemporary reactionaries will equally attempt to implicate the whole art world into Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes by association – if institutional accountability keeps failing, or is missing altogether.
What’s more: the rightwing reaction will be a special blowback for those minority artists, whose work the museum had just begun to finally rescue from structural institutional neglect. At this point though these bodies of work sadly look as if they were being instrumentalized by the museum as cosmetic distractions to divert from its spectacular failure in protecting its own dignity.
This impotence risks contaminating not only the work of artists, but the art world as a whole. In a time when people worldwide are suffering economically, mentally, and physically, pursuits like art assisted tax avoidance start appearing for what they are: excesses of entitlement and privilege, undermining important services like Medicare, depriving health workers of desperately needed resources to keep people alive.
MoMA unfortunately doesn’t seem to care. MoMA has not responded to Hyperallergic’ multiple requests for comment.
Collective Statement Signed by 154 artists, curators, and art workers:
We, as artists and art workers, support the removal of Leon Black from the board of MoMA for reasons that have already been stated by many others. However, this should be considered the bare minimum. Beyond his removal, we must think seriously about a collective exit from art’s imbrication in toxic philanthropy and structures of oppression, so that we don’t have to have the same conversations over and over, one board member at a time. This thinking can only catalyze action once we state plainly: We do not need this money. Museums and other arts institutions must pursue alternative models, cooperative structures, Land Back initiatives, reparations, and additional ideas that constitute an abolitionist approach toward the arts and arts patronage, so that they align with the egalitarian principles that drew us to art in the first place.
Aaron Hughes Aaron Landsman Abou Farman Ajay Kurian Alan Ruiz Alberto Garcia Rodriguez Alex Paik Alex Zandi Alexa Punnamkuzhyil Ali Eyal Ali Yass Amanda Matles, Pratt Institute Aminah Ibrahim Ana Ratner Anna Sew Hoy Andrea Fraser Andreas Amble Andrew Ranville Andrew Weiner, NYU Ánima Correa Anna Harsanyi Ann Holder Art and Labor Podcast Art Handlers Alliance Artists For Workers Aru Apaza Axe Binondo Azikiwe Mohammed Baseera Khan Betty Roytburd Blakey Bessire Brett Wallace Caitlin Cahill Carlos Rosales-Silva Chelsea Birenberg Christina Chan Christina Martinelli Claire Mirocha Clarinda Mac Low Clark Filio Claudia Hart Dana Kopel Danielle Dean David Borgonjon David Kramer Denisse Andrade, Pratt Institute Devin Kenny Edi Friedlander Emily Johnson Emily Shanahan Eric Golo Stone Erin Murphy Eriola Pira Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung Francesca Altamura Frank J. Stockton Franklyn Cain Gee Wesley Gordon Hall Greg Lindquist Guerrilla Girls Halieadorable211 Hallie McNeill HOUSING Gallery Ian Epps Isabelle Brourman Jake Davidson Jared Brown Jason Simon Jeffrey Grunthaner Jennifer M. Williams Jenny Dubnau Jessica Wilson Jesus Benavente Jo Shane Johanne Swanson Johnson Study Group Jonathan González Jorge Rojas Joseph Lubitz Josephine Heston Julia Kwon Juliana Cerqueira Leite Kai Matsumiya Kat Zhao Katherine Aungier Katie Giritlian Katie Grace McGowan, Detroit, MI. Katy Bea KJ Freeman Kristan Kennedy Lawrence Sanchez lexi welch Lia Gangitano, PARTICIPANT INC Lilly Hern-Fondation Lincoln Tobier, Los Angeles Lissa Regnier Liz Glynn Lluis Alexandre Casanovas Blanco Lorelei Ramirez Lucas Baisch Manolis D. Lemos Marnie Briggs María Verónica San Martín Max Warsh Megan Elevado Michael Rakowitz Michelle Rosenberg Mikeeh Zwirner (Institute of Museums Against All Fucked Up Social Systems) Mimi Bai Minahil Khan Mira Dayal Moyra Davey Nan Goldin Nataša Prljević Nia Nottage Nick Wylie, Public Media Institute Nikiesha Hamilton Nikki Columbus Noah Fischer Paddy Johnson Patrick Carlin Mohundro Paul John Paul McAdory Peter Rostovsky, artist, writer, educator. Rachel Valinsky Ramón Miranda Beltrán Rebecca Naegele Rena Anakwe Rindon Johnson Rory Murphy Ryan Oskin Ryan Scullin Sam Korman Sara Grace Powell Sara Magenheimer Sari Weisenberg Shanjana Mahmud Sherko Abbas Sophia Friedman-Pappas Stephanie Acosta Stephen Sewell Sunny Iyer Taehee Whang (Hyperlink Press) Teresa Ross Tellechea the Dismantle NOMA collective Todd Ayoung, Pratt Institute Todd Gray V. M. McEwen Valerie Chang Vanessa Thill Vijay Masharani Wes Larios William Powhida Winslow Smith Xavier Danto Xaviera Simmons Zazu Swistel
MoMA Divest
Recent confirmations of MoMA Board of Trustees Chair Leon Black’s deep financial and personal connections to Jeffrey Epstein underline the problems that MoMA and other major museum boards face and have failed to reckon with in any meaningful way. We note that Leon Black’s corruption extends far as his “investment” firm is also the owner of Constellis, formerly known as Blackwater, a private military firm which was banned from operating in Iraq after its staff were charged with war crimes (when MoMA Divest peacefully protested this last year in solidarity with exhibiting artist Ali Yass, PS1 responded by calling NYPD). Those war criminals were part of the recent spate of pardons by Trump.
Leon Black is not an anomaly. Five MoMA board members – Tananbaum, Dubin, Cohen, Black, Fink – have been identified and targetted by different groups over the last year for their ties to war, racist prison and border enforcement systems, vulture fund exploitation, gentrification and displacement of the poor, extractivism and environmental degradation, and patriarchal forms of violence. Board members also have ties and donate to the NYPD Police Foundation. In short, the rot is at the core of the institution, which includes PS1. MoMA/PS1 directors and administrators have quietly taken the dirty money in the name of art and made empty curatorial gestures towards political issues. MoMA’s director Glenn Lowry has said that Leon Black “continue[s] this tradition of visionary leadership with their passion for modern and contemporary art, strategic planning and financial expertise, and deep understanding of the Museum and its mission.” MoMA’s mission, then, must be artwashing; but it can no longer clean the fact that war and prison profiteering, child prostitution, and various forms of structural racism are part of the structure of MoMA/PS1. For a civic institution with civic responsibilities this is unacceptable. Nothing short of a major reconstitution of the board, a change of directors, a public reckoning, and a reimagining of the institutional and curatorial mission of the museum is acceptable. We also reiterate previous demands that MoMA/PS1 issue a public statement regarding their position on proceeds and donations that come as a result of violence from these issues, and start a transparent public investigation into any and all funds linked to these matters, including those in the various pension funds used by the institution; and that MoMA/PS1 begin a community-based process of reinvestment, redistribution, land restoration, and reparations in affected communities.
Decolonize This Place
Fuck MoMA: An Open Call To Action We are tired of the same shit making news over and over. It has become a banal routine. One place after another. Another institution, another oligarch artwashing their death-dealing profits, with womxn bearing the brunt of it all. This is not a PR crisis, or just a matter of toxic philanthropy. MoMA is a frontline of gendered and racialized class war, and we all have a responsibility to act.
Letters, pleas, and backroom deals are not enough. After the removal of Kanders from the Whitney, after the George Floyd rebellion, after the open declaration of war by Fascists seeking to salvage white heteropatriarchal rule, we must do and demand more. Board members are not the problem. They only make the problem visible. MoMA in its entirety is the problem. Perhaps it’s time to abolish MoMA.
MoMA was founded with the oil wealth of the Rockefellers. Since then, the museum has been a clearing house for capital, a showcase for domination, and an ecocidal machine. It has diversified in content, but in practice it has been an enemy of the poor and the marginalized, the fired and the furloughed, the displaced and the dispossessed, the detained and the deported, the dying and the dead. After the recent uprisings, MoMA and other cultural institutions are scrambling to proclaim their commitment to justice, diversity, and equity. How can an institution claim such values with predatory billionaires controlling it? Even visionary exhibitions like Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration cannot escape this contradiction.
Various campaigns and actions have said this in recent years: MoMA is anti-Womxn, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Migrant, anti-Worker. Not simply because MoMA has failed to be truly inclusive in its collection or programming or staffing. But because MoMA, as an institution harboring the likes of Leon Black and Larry Fink, is complicit in oppression globally, from the burning of the Amazon to migrant detention camps to gentrification and mass displacement, to the exploitation of womxn and children. If left unchallenged, MoMA will continue to pose a danger to humanity and the planet at large.
So what would it mean to abolish MoMA, and who will undertake this task? Such an effort requires us all. A stakeholder-led decolonization process could be a way forward to deal with this fuckery. Absent such an initiative, we encourage self-organized action so that MoMA will see the writing on the wall. Here is a Decolonial Operations Manual for people who wish to act autonomously. We remind the general public that the MoMA building is open every day of the week from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm.

We all were co-authors for the first chapter of Ezio's history to a huge degree

So, December 1st, 2020: I started playing AC1 on its one X enhanced version, and I absolutely adored it: teenage me thought it was kinda boring back in 2007; I was just a teenager after all. But that same teen-me used to think that AC2 was an indisputable masterpiece, so what's about that?
January 1st, 2021, at 12:00 am: I start playing AC2. I just finished it and I'm now starting Brotherhood (I'm loving it, as it should be). But the thing with AC2 is..., it's interesting to say the least.
_______________
The truth is complicated for this installment, because in fact, it is not a masterpiece by it's own as the vast majority of us have remembered, and it's not a boring, aged title with an uninteresting protagonist who doesn't actually change as many people also believe nowadays. - (he does indeed, change, but the way we experience the changes is weird to say the least).
In other words, this is not your typical post praising the game, nor your typical post trying to spoil your memories about it. I'm not on either of those sides because this is not a dichotomy and it's not as simple as to say that this game has it's flaws while being very good nonetheless. How I wish it was that simple; if it was, I wouldn't be writing this.
So yeah, I just finished the game for the second time in my life (reached 100% sync. yay); the first time being as soon as it came out all those years ago. And trust me, back then the experience was almost life-changing for me as it was for many people around the world; absolutely unbelievable.
But this time, more than a decade later, I went fully armed with the Renaissance novel and the official printed guide. And what I saw unfolding before my eyes was so weird. I experienced some kind of mild Mandela Effect, maybe: it was like I was able to remember things that were never there, and I just figured out the why.
So here's the deal: the main idea for the story is actually great!, the time period, the atmosphere, music, architecture and heavily political tone makes the experience honestly interesting. The problem? the gaps; the constant time-jumps; the ungodly amount of untold development.
And from this issue I have concluded that for a lot of us, a major percentage of the game actually happened inside our heads.
Now I hope you bear with me, as I actually struggled to write this as English is not my main language, but I hope I did a good job with no Google Translate :)
But, just before I go to the main point, I'd just want to briefly mention -as a response to some critics to the game over the past few years-, that so far as I understand, the in-game mechanics and graphics are objectively "fine", because despite the horrendous draw distance and shadow quality, the original game (not the remastered one) actually felt like a living-playable water painting. You know, take this from someone who experienced the game on day one in a good-ol' CRT-TV. Heck, even some PS1 games still look beautiful in a CRT-TV. AC2 was never meant to be seen on today's huge-ass 4k HDR tv's, and it shows.
As for the mechanics (combat and parkour that is), while refined in Brotherhood, they were at least rewarding to learn and master just like in AC1, because even when the in-game action was not a pure constant flow-state, there were a bunch of rules to learn in order to make all the movements and combat somewhat faster, more precise and therefore more enjoyable.
I just felt like saying it because I've seen a lot of people complaining about the aged mechanics when the only "problem" is that they requiere a lot from you, unlike the auto-pilot mode that was introduced from AC3 onwards. And everytime I see someone still complaining about AC1 lookin better than AC2 (which, is kinda true) I feel sad that they might not be aprecciating that all the detail AC2 lost in graphical quality, it gained in atmosphere, facial expressions and even light changes!. So, again, none of this is a dichotomy, so the absolute praise as well as unfair critics to AC2 have no place here.

_________
Now, on with the good stuff.
I know that no writer or director should make an indiscriminate use of expository dialogue, but for the love of the Creed!... the second installment in the AC series is lacking to the extreme.
The thing that I found, in very few words, is this: the epic Ezio development we all fondly remember from his first game, happened 50% inside our heads. Not even the novelization compensated for that despite adding a lot of detail and explanations for some of the time jumps in-game.
So yeah, it makes sense that we see a changed man at the end of our gameplay, but we are expected to fill-in the gaps an insanely huge amount of the time.
One easy-to-remember example would be the final speech in Bonfire of the Vanities:
It makes sense inside our heads, but not inside the game itself: Ezio tells the crowd how all of his allies helped him overcome is vengeance instincts... but we never see any of that, with the only exception of Mario telling him back when he was 17: "don't become like your enemies". But the rest of the time, Mario himself and all of his allies only fueled the narrative of chasing every single conspirator to their deaths; which was good for the people, but every kill never came with a lesson, not from his targets, and not from his friends. Usually the whole deal went like: go kill - yey you killed!.
A better way to make my point clear, is that those friends were mere spectators for Savonarola's burning: they were just going to watch him burn and suffer a long death while people cheered. It was Ezio who thought better and decided to end his suffering earlier. Then... he thanked those who instigated that level of violence in the first place (Machiavelli, La Volpe and Paula) for teaching him... the contrary of what we actually see.
So, I'm not saying that this is precisely a plot-hole, as much as I would like to believe that all of that actually happened and Ezio was telling an overall truth, is just that we don't get to see it with our own eyes with the exception of that lesson from Mario in San Gimignano that I already mentioned.
-- Btw, what was Mario doing all of the sudden in the final cutscene of Bonfire of the Vanities?, nobody knows -not even Oliver Bowden-; he doesn't appear to be involved in any other point of that repaired memory. So... late to the party I guess.
Now the elephant in the room: we lost almost a decade of Ezio's life between Savonarola taking the Apple from him at the end of the Battle of Forlì and Ezio actually finding him in Florence. I'll not go into detail here, but the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Also worth nothing: AC Discovery doesn't fill any gaps, it just tell us that Ezio made a journey to Spain, met some new friends and foes, and that was about it. And all those years just went by for no reason other than being necessary for them to pass in order to coincide with Rodrigo being Pope for the last sequence.
Finally, even though the story surrounding Ezio is great until the very end in AC Embers, I'm finding that ACII actually portrays Ezio as being dumb as a rock the entire time, except of course for the last two sequences (13/14), when he suddenly became a wise member of the order before our eyes, while losing actual sight of all that extraordinary development in the lost years I already mentioned: I don't care if he went to Spain, that tells me nothing about his development. So again: we all collectively know how he became such a wise man, although we didn't actually see it and I find that really interesting, we all created the same storyline despite the gaps.
Now... this next thing, this is just fabulous:
The most horrendous mistake of dumb-young-Ezio, -almost- happened just before the lost years: more specifically, just before the Battle for Forlì began. And I cannot stress this enough... as enormous as this oversight was, nobody has ever talked about it in any forum or video:
Ezio was about to give the Apple of Eden to a templar called Girolamo Riario: just because he had the hots for Caterina Sforza.
Leonardo told Ezio to be careful around Caterina, as she was married to this powerful man named Girolamo. And between those years, Lorenzo de' Medici revealed to Ezio that this man was in fact, a very powerful and influential templar. Ezio made dozens of kills around this fact, trying to stop Girolamo's plans to take control of some cities. And all of this is shown in-game, and so far as I know, it is canon. The thing is that you probably don't remember as it's mandatory to read what's the deal before every assassination mission and they don't even have cutscenes.
Ok so, at the start of that first repaired memory, Mario tells Ezio that the Apple could be well guarded inside Forlì. Poor Mario didn't HAVE to know its current ruler was a templar. But Ezio did by this time in his life. Nonetheless, as soon as he knows this is a way to see Caterina again, he promptly shouts: "I think I may enjoy this mission!"
Once in Forlì, Caterina tells us that she just killed his templar husband and that she actually hated him.
Okay. So now it's all good but... what if she didn't...?. Do you see the problem here?. Ezio couldn't possibly know that Caterina was an actual friend of the cause even if Mario believed so. In fact, he had all the clues he could possibly have to know that she was in fact, a templar. Still, he gladly went to see her in order to give her the Apple... and something else probably, that something else apparently being his top priority because he didn't even question his uncle.
We could of course think that Mario already knew about the death of Girolamo and the allaince of Caterina, but even then, Ezio's reaction given all we know and all he knew by then is... so weird.
Btw, random trivia: remember how we met her?. Pretty weird right?. The Renaissance novel tells us that she was having a fight with Girolamo, and he abandoned her in that piece of rock surrounded by water with no near boats. She was telling him to move his influences for personal immediate gain, but Girolamo refused and didn't want to hear more insults coming from his wife, temporarily abandoning her in the spot in which we met her. Kinda funny in fact. Anyways....

*******
check point reached if you made it this far :)
******\*

Now, remember when in Venice Ezio reveals to Rosa that it's his birthday?. There are two things to say here:
First, Rosa never shows up again, but that's because of a real life tragedy, not a problem of the narrative. There were different plans for her, to the point of being one of the biggest what-if's of the Desmond series.
Second... this is when Leonardo appears to tell Ezio: hey!... so, you know, this codex pages and the tales inside them that I've been deciphering... they seem to be more than simple tales and blueprints. And Ezio goes like: oh my god! I thought my uncle was crazy! lol!.
Back when he was training in the Villa, Mario not just told him about the great conspiracy that got his father and brothers killed and the century-old battle between Templars and Assassins, he told him about the codex pages and we also learn while the training sequence was taking place, that Ezio has been sneaking into Mario's library to read all about these ancient topics, and on top of that: every major target Ezio dispatched along the way, HAD A CODEX PAGE.
But there he is, 10 years later, not believing in the importance of this pages in the great scheme of things, and not understanding how it all correlates to all the names in his father's list, until Leonardo shows up and tells him this obvious thing Ezio should have know by now: this pages have a great secret to tell, and that's why everyone wants a piece of them.
Sigh.
____________________________

But I mean, yeah... at the end, Ezio ends up being a really wise man, no joke. One that despite fictional, I admire. And the overall story is actually really intense and interesting. It's just that it's filled with huge logical gaps, time jumps, and all the development the protagonist underwent was actually unseen. He went from being a confused, sometimes angry boy 95% of the game, to being an admirable wise man all of a sudden before our eyes because of this weird pacing.
That is the real "problem" with the game, no all the other things I have heard and read about. Ezio is not uninteresting in this game as a lot of people have said, but is in fact frustrating because of the way his growth is just half-presented.
And he is also not this very human-like individual we all would like to remember, as he is -despite his immature ways most of the game-, absolutely untouchable: a perfect killing machine, a charming Casanova, a perfect friend, son and brother. He is a Mary Sue in this game, and we all have to accept it. In contrast, we saw just in the previous game how Altair changed his whole world view and attitude, very slowly, with every mission that passed and with no real time jumps. He started to question not just his master's ways, but his own way of essentialy... being.
Fortunately, Ezio actually becomes more human in the next two games. And of course: if we see AC2 as not just his first title, but as the whole Ezio Trilogy, then yeah... it is safe to say that it is a masterpiece.
It is a truly great piece even in spite of the plot hole introduced in his trilogy about the Apples by the time Brotherhood came along: back in the day, we were not sure if that Apple in Venice was Altair's as the game lead us to believe, because... how it could actually came from the Templar Archive in Cyprus presented in AC Bloodlines, if that place was believed to be empty and destroyed? This problem in the narrative was kinda corrected in Revelations and AC Recollection (ios game), but at the end of the day I'd loved it to be the same Apple the whole time, and the changes still feel weird to me, as weird as it felt knowing Lucy was a double-agent the whole time.
But despite the weird pacing* and little details as the last one I just mentioned, I'm sure the Ezio trilogy will go down in videogame history as one of the greatest games of all time if we see it as one, because it actually is.
*I just stumbled across this "old" website talking about the pacing in AC2 and actually giving ideas about how it could have been a lot better, I greatly recommend it: https://stanislavcostiuc.com/2013/11/05/assassins-creed-ii-plot-pacing/
Of course, I missed the more philosophical and misterious aspects from the previous game, specially with all this talk and doubts about basically everyone being in a moral gray area in AC1, without this element being overly analyzed with mixed messages like in AC3.
But AC2 has in its favor a heavily political tone, and Ezio becomes an actual polititian himself in his own way, with each strategic killing, whether he realized it or not. -- Actually... something among those lines was also told to Altair back in the day: a Rafiq telling him that he was a politician in his own way.
So AC2 exploring this side of the battle more than the philosophical and moral implications of the war, is not something bad. It's just a different aspect of a whole, and it's welcomed for the way it is presented.
Finally... you know? I remember the Glyphs being really deep and sh*t. Woah boy was I wrong. How impressionable the mind of a teenager can be. Is just pure nonsense, but I get why I felt they were so great back in the day. Is the same reason a lot of people today believe in pseudoscience and refuse factual reality, maybe becoming extremist in a way, or even ending up as a part of a cult without even realizing it, as the United States has recently shown the rest of the world. But that's a whole other topic of discussion. It's just sad that I don't get to enjoy those pieces of fiction in the same way as before after having witnessed the real dangers of conspiracy theories; I should just forget about real life while gaming or seeing a movie and enjoy great pieces of fiction as Assassin's Crees is/was, but reality... is so real nowadays. I cannot turn a blind eye.
___________
Ok, ok, I don't want to end in a sad note. Let's see.. maybe the best, the absolute best thing about the whole AC2 experience besides the main story and the context in which is presented (like the magnificent architecture we're shown and the rest of the ambience including the soundtrack), was... *drum roll* ... reading the codex. I wish we had a proper Altair Trilogy alongside our Ezio Trilogy.
In fact, I hope we have an absolute remake of Altair's story some day in the future. Just to get to know him better. He surely has a lot to say.
Now I just started Brotherhood (which right off the bat distinguishes itslef from AC2 with a more cohesive and refined narrative) and so I'm equaly excited to jump to Revelations now as soon as I finish Brotherhood :) Again: I haven't experienced those games since they came out and same goes for AC3.
The thing is, I stoped right there back in 2012. So I hope to perserve the hype I'm experiencing right now to play AC4, Liberation, Rogue and Unity for the first time. And maybe, just maybe I'll stop there, as I am not sure about anything further down the line in the series, but only time will tell. :)
__________
Thank you, sincerely, if you made it this far. I'd love to read your comments and I hope you all have a good day or night today.
****************
Bonus content for all AC2 lovers:
Assassin's Creed II: The Real History of Florence
History Respawned: Assassin's Creed II
"The Italian Renaissance" - Assassin's Creed: Real History

23M Am I bad at reading her signals? Next step advice.

Ranking The TDAS Characters Day 8: The Courtney Question (Christmas Special Part 1/2)

My Rant on Terrible Dating Advice & Other Aspects of Modern Dating (28M's Perspective)

There's alot of terrible dating advice and dating rules that gets thrown out there and read countless posts here on how modern dating sucks and I believe one of the reasons why modern dating sucks is because of some of the currently established rules and dating advice given.
Notice: This is entirely my opinion, I don't claim any of it as total truth, and this is just a summary analysis from my personal experience and from the experience of others that I have read from this subreddit.

"Women are human/people" = First of all, this isn't advice, it's a statement... Women are people and are human? No shit Sherlock but saying this to a guy, who is having trouble getting dates or relationships, isn't going to make him magically understand women and become Casanova. Alot of guys who have trouble with women are because they're not good with women or people in general or might have poor self image and confidence issues. Telling them something as generic as "women are people" doesn't actually fix the underlying causes that are hurting their dating prospects. On the other side, I've NEVER heard of women giving advice like "men are people" to women that are having trouble with getting men so just wtf?
"You should only date someone you're attracted to" = The big problem with this shit advice is that sometimes attraction, especially HEALTHY attraction, is usually built over time. How many times do you remember where you INSTANTLY became attracted to a person literally the nanosecond you saw them? Idk, maybe I'm weird or some shit but I remember having crushes on girls that I had already knew/met. In fact it was the same the other way around when girls who knew me more and more started developing crushes on me. Point is that you're not always going to be attracted to someone right off the bat; sometimes that attraction has to ferment to be strong.
"Don't date potential" = I will partially agree with this piece of advice, only partially and the reason why is because if you're dating a guy who only says he's going to accomplish XYZ and he turns out to be bullshit in the end, then yea that's your fault but if that same guy is actually making/showing some effort towards their goals then why not date them? One piece of advice my mother gave me is that I should never let my daughter(s) get married to men who aren't working or at least in school which makes sense since being in school is an example of showing effort. Another example is let's say you're dating a guy who wants to be a musician, dude actually has a recording studio set up and everything and has actually produced music but he hasn't made it big yet. Should you date this guy? Sure if he still has a stable income that's allowing him to support himself then I don't see why you shouldn't date this guy.
Early sex has ruined dating & flooded the dating market with fling/short-term daters = The expectation of sex before even defining a relationship or allowing a relationship to grow has ruined dating. Part of the reason is because this has allowed the dating market to be flooded with people who just want flings which means you have to go to the extra effort of filtering out people who don't want anything long-term and having to deal with people lying that they want a long-term relationship (LTR) when they actually just want a fling... That shit's annoying and we all know it. Related to that reason is early sex because the people lying that they want a LTR will just ghost after getting sex. I'm well aware that sex is usually introduced early in order to see if the couple are sexual compatible but (in reality, most sexual incompatibility can be resolved through opening up and communicating with your partner about yours needs, etc.) this has caused more problems than it actually solves and this is a big issue because communication issues should be resolved before sexual compatibility... If you're a person just looking to have fun, then cool have your fun and do you but for us people looking for a girlfriend/boyfriend, get the fuck out of the way cuz you're making shit harder than it has to be and we don't care how hot you think we are and how you just want to get with us to relieve your sexual tension, if you're not gonna stay with us longer than 4-6 months, then gtfo.
Being too Judgemental on the dating/sexual experience of another person = We are all different, which means we're all gonna be different in terms of dating experience. Some people are mature about dating while others are not. Being an experienced dater does NOT mean you're a mature person. Given that we have a larger amount of people who are suffering low self esteem and depression than previous generations, that means there's a large pool of people with little-to-no sexual experience as well as little-to-no dating experience either. Realistically, there are a million and one reasons why someone would be over 25 and still be a virgin, regardless if they're a man or woman. Just because they are a virgin doesn't mean they won't be a great relationship or sexual partner and just because they're not a virgin and never had a relationship doesn't mean they can deliver mind-blowing sex or be a good relationship partner. Obviously I understand why people believe that but such a judgemental bias only adds to the hindrance that people with too little or too much experience have to deal with. Do I even need to mention that there are people who have been driving for years but they're still shitty drivers and driving a car is alot simpler than sex so let that sink in...
Variations of "just be confident" = Do I really need to explain why this is dumb in any level? Yes, Confidence can be built but confidence also comes from having results. You think a girl who has never been asked out by any guy for years is going to be confident in dating? No. Confidence is how much you believe in your ability to do something. Given this definition, you can't just "be confident". That's like telling a person who's struggling with math to just "know math". You're essentially telling the person to transmute from not believing they can do something to just believe they can do it. Do you now see why that sounds stupid? If you're trying to tell the other person to fake it, then just tell them to fake it, don't say vague, dumb shit.
Just tell her how you feel = No you fucking idiot, don't tell that girl-friend, that you've been besties with for a long time, how you feel. Why? Because you're gonna scare her away. You want to leave the friendzone and make her your girlfriend? Then you gotta work it patiently and slowly escalate romantically, flirt more and see how she reacts. Positive reaction? Do more. Negative reaction? Pull back. Keep slowly but surely escalating. Vomiting your feelings onto her when she doesn't even feel that way is why so many guys whine about the friendzone. At least take advantage of the friendzone by going at your own pace how to flirt and learn about women you dingus. Now that you know this, going the friend route takes longer and is a bigger long-term investment than straight up asking the girl out but at least it does have its own benefits because you don't have to deal with the initial getting-to-know-each-other, being-on-your-best-behavior stage.
"I don't want a project/I don't want to have to teach a person" = This mentality makes zero sense to me. You've been a project your whole life... You're both a project & teaching lesson to your parents, especially if you're their first born. You were a project & teaching lesson to your peers as well, that's how people learn socializing... Guess what: you'll never stop being a project and you'll never stop being a learning lesson to others, regardless whether they intend you as a learning lesson or not. You're always learning and adapting. Everybody learns at their own pace. Don't shit on someone just because they haven't gotten to your level and, if you're not going to help push them to get to your level, the least you can do is be supportive and motivating instead of negative. If you're not gonna do that either, then go find someone at a similar pace where you're at but don't expect someone to be exactly at the same level since we all experience life differently.
Getting more attention/interest, than you are used to, is not "needy" = Does this really need to be explained? Realize that you're just not that into them on the level they were into you and that's totally fine but it's an asshole move to brush them off as "needy" when they're just excited from crushing on you and you have an avoidant attachment style. Is it so hard to tell the person to calm the fuck down and control how they feel if you're that overwhelmed by it? It's called COMMUNICATION. It's ok to have an avoidant attach style, especially if you're aware of it and trying to deal with it, but don't fucking call people needy when we all know how being called "needy" is pretty much a romantic death sentence for people trying to get into a relationship.
"Be yourself" = Nah booboo, be your best self. Moving on...
"I didn't feel a spark on the first date" = Well first of all, "the spark" is bullshit. It's just an oversimplified moniker for whether you find the person sexually attractive or not. Basically another way of saying "chemistry" aka being physically or personality-wise attracted to the person. It's bullshit because attraction can be built over time and we all know this. Kind of a tie-in with #2 if you think about it. If it's the personality part then I'm willing to be more forgiving on that end but is it that hard to say you're not a match, personality wise?
Last One - Don't Take ALL advice from Reddit Too Serious = Remember that Reddit is just random people who don't have 100% of the details of your situation and experience, so they'll just parrot from their own experience and the typical (bad) dating advice that I've been ripping on. It doesn't mean that what they advise is just plain wrong but you gotta remember that they only know the face value details that you give. They don't know you, the other person you need advice about, etc.

Need advice from a woman.. or people I'm not sure what to do..

I cheated my way into a month of NoFap. An unconventional approach. And a glorious journey.

A brief back story-
24 years old male here. Found out about masturbation when I was 17. Been masturbating ever since that. Always had a thing for weirdest and most embarrassing fetishes.
Result? A wide and never ending variety of content was available to me all the time.
I had been trying NoFap for past 2 and a half years, but always relapsed after 2-3 days. The longest streak I had done before this was 14 days. This was back in 2019 after I went on a trekking trip with my crush (We'll come to this part later).
After trying and failing countless times, I finally gave up NoFap in August 2020. I started regularly masturbating daily from there on. I had completely lost hope to ever achieve even a week of NoFap. Sufficed to say that I was miserable.
I knew I was an addict. I knew I had a serious problem that would take a serious toll on me as I grow older. But I just couldn't fight the urge at all.
I was a complete slave to my mind.
Fast forward to 31st December 2020. By now I had started a YT channel along with my mundane job and was creating content every now and then. I finally completed this one video I worked so hard on for the past 10 days and I decided to upload it at midnight exactly. It felt really great to create something on your own. To work on something hard and do it successfully. To learn new things. There was satisfaction in the air. I went to bed and according to my daily routine I started finding good porn to fap on.
The only difference that night was I was doing it out of habit and not because I wanted to.
That's the moment it all started coming together..
Early in the post I mentioned that the longest streak of my life at that time was 14 days. And that happened ONLY after I successfully managed to get my crush to hangout with me for an entire day. Being a self improvement junkie for a better part of my life, it wasn’t hard for me to understand what was going on.
Every time I accomplish something difficult, the dopamine released in my system is off the charts. So much so that I did not even want to fap.
So now what? I decided to skip fapping that night. I knew I would come around the next day and would want to do it again.. But I did not. Nor the day after that either. So how did this happen? I cheated.
Unconventional approach to NoFap-
In every YT video and post on NoFap, I would find out all these time proven techniques to use to avoid relapsing. The major one was 'No Peeking'. Hold that thought..
So here's how it all went down..
*READ CAREFULLY BEYOND THIS POINT\*
I realized that the only reason I always failed at NoFap was because I was trying to fight my mind when I wasn't powerful enough. It was a futile attempt.
I WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH TO FIGHT MY MIND.
I WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO FIGHT MY URGES TO WATCH PORN.
BUT …
I SURE AS HELL WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO FIGHT MY BODY.
On that very night, I made a deal with my brain. I will watch ALL the porn you want me to watch. I will give myself in to every temptation to watch the explicit content. I will not forbid myself from peeking at anything you want me to peek at.
BUT I SHALL NOT TOUCH MYSELF. I WILL NOT MASTURBATE.
No matter how much I want to, I'm just gonna lock my right hand under my ass. I SHALL NOT TOUCH MY D*CK. COME WHAT MAY.
And my dudes.. That did the trick. One day at a time. Days passed
I kept giving my brain what it wanted but took something more important from it. The pleasure.
Results?
Slowly my desire to look at porn started fading away. But still I sometimes wanted to, and I didn't hold back. I kept watching it every time I wanted.
But here's the punchline-
"Watching the porn will ONLY frustrate your brain if you don't masturbate."
NOW READ THAT AGAIN
I started noticing slow but significant changes in myself after about 2 weeks of NoFap. Here's how it went..
1st week of January 2021-
THE HARDEST MOTHERF**KING TIME OF ALL THE STREAK. It's like you are performing exorcism on yourself. I was just screaming internally.
Every excuse I could come up with to go back to fapping, I DID come up with.
My brain started using my mundane life against me. Tempting me with memories of pleasure that I got from fapping. Telling me that fapping is the only good thing in your life right now and you just can’t give up on it like that.
DIDN’T LISTEN. KEPT GOING. I HAD NO ENDGOAL. I JUST KEPT GOING WITHOUT ANY EXPECTATIONS.
2nd week of January 2021-
By now it was fairly easy to fight the urge to fap. But not to watch porn. I started having dreams of my fetishes. I couldn't sleep without thinking of naked women. My d*ck became sensitive to smallest of stuff. Listening to Donna Summer' music would turn me on at this point. But benefits also started to show up. I wasn't hyper active anymore. But my mind was still a mess.
3rd week of January 2021-
This was the week I really started pulling myself together. My mind was losing and it was used to losing. I now would deliberately feed my mind nude images (Not videos), to observe the reaction.
There was no reaction. I didn't get turned on. I was scared shitless like WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?Turns out I just cannot focus on porn anymore. It's just random images playing in front of me at this point. To get turned on I had to intentionally focus on "feeling" the porn, and then only I would get a hard on.
"I CONSUMED A LITTLE POIS\N EVERYDAY. DIDN’T LET IT OUT. AND SOMEHOW I BECAME IMMUNE TO IT."*

4th and final week of January-
I was now disgusted by looking at porn. I don’t even click on the images anymore let alone browsing videos.
Benefits:
-I can still use Instagram and follow all my favorite models and actresses without any fear of relapsing.
-Dealing with urge is peace of cake now.
-More desire to get out and meet women so that I can actually get laid
- Social anxiety have almost vanished
-My tongue is now plugged in on my brain. I somehow know exactly what to say without any stuttering or stammering due to lack of self esteem.
· More aggressive AND assertive. I just can't stand bullshit anymore. And an "Couldn't care less" attitude is showing up.
· Confidence is emerging. A Saiyan is born. Super Saiyan is on the way.
The best part? Met a pretty girl on my best friend's wedding (She was bride's sister), flirted with her like I'm a f*cking natural or something. I only remember the splashes of how it all went down because I wasn't the one doing all the thinking. Something was operating me. Making me say Casanova level stuff. Because of NoFap I was now so close to a girl that I could feel her breath on my face as we talked looking in each other's eyes. (I live in India btw. So moments like these are not very normal unless you belong to high class family living in urban township. Most of us have to go though life with old school love) And yes I did get her number.
FINAL THOUGHTS-
I can understand if many of you don't agree with the way I did a month. I know breaking a PMO cycle means not watching porn at all. I know I may have broken the rules and I acknowledge that I have cheated. But in the end we are all here.
To my fellow brothers who are just getting into NoFap or suffering just like I did, here's what I have to say to you.
We don’t necessarily have to follow the same path to success. Every person is different. Find your own path. Let it be flawed if that's what it takes. Stop being a perfectionist. Understand your mind and befriend it. Don't be a slave to it. If you are coming into NoFap only for all the benefits. You might as well turn back now. Realize that you are addicts and do something to change that. Results will follow.
I'm not going to get into nitty gritty of science behind NoFap, But here's the key thing that I have learned that basically connects all the dots to the benefits.
When you complete about 20 days of NoFap fighting your urges. You will start to feel so fking proud about yourself I kid you not. Because you are literally dealing with one of the greatest problem of our generation, every other petty issue will turn the volume down on you. I guarantee you will remind yourself every time you are faced with a challenge,
"I have completed N days of NoFap, I KNOW I can do this. It cannot be harder than battling my addiction."
I believe in you. You got this.
Good Luck to all of you comrades.
Here's to many more months like this one.

BOOK SUMMARY: The Gift of Fear - Chapter 4: SURVIVAL SIGNALS

This is a collection of quotes from the chapter 4 of the book "The Gift of Fear" that I'm reading at the moment. I will make more posts about other relevant chapters if you are interested.
Its about signs you should look for when dealing with people, specially strangers that approach you, as a way to keep youself safe. It a good worthwhile reading, and could potentially save your life someday:

The capable face-to-face criminal is an expert at keeping his victim from seeing survival signals, but the very methods he uses to conceal them can reveal them:
Forced Teaming

Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we’re-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude. But forced teaming is not about coincidence; it is intentional and directed, and it is one of the most sophisticated manipulations. The detectable signal of forced teaming is the projection of a shared purpose or experience where none exists: “Both of us;” “we’re some team;” “how are we going to handle this?;” “now we’ve done it,” etc. Forced teaming is done in many contexts for many reasons, but when applied by a stranger to a woman in a vulnerable situation (such as alone in a remote or unpopulated area), it is always inappropriate. It is not about partnership or coincidence—it is about establishing rapport, and that may or may not be all right, depending on why someone seeks rapport. - simple defense for forced teaming, which is to make a clear refusal to accept the concept of partnership: “I did not ask for your help and I do not want it.” Like many of the best defenses, this one has the cost of appearing rude. Safety is the preeminent concern of all creatures and it clearly justifies a seemingly abrupt and rejecting response from time to time.

Charm and Niceness

Charm is another overrated ability. Note that I called it an ability, not an inherent feature of one’s personality. Charm is almost always a directed instrument, which, like rapport-building, has motive. To charm is to compel, to control by allure or attraction. Think of charm as a verb, not a trait. If you consciously tell yourself, “This person is trying to charm me” as opposed to, “This person is charming,” you’ll be able to see around it. Most often, when you see what’s behind charm, it won’t be sinister, but other times you’ll be glad you looked.
“If I am trying to deceive someone, that person has to be just a bit smarter than I am in order to see through my deceit. That means you have sort of an arms race.”
The predatory criminal does all he can to make that arms race look like détente. “He was so nice” is a comment I often hear from people describing the man who, moments or months after his niceness, attacked them. We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive.
I encourage women to explicitly rebuff unwanted approaches, but I know it is difficult to do. Just as rapport-building has a good reputation, explicitness applied by women in this culture has a terrible reputation. A woman who is clear and precise is viewed as cold, or a bitch, or both. A woman is expected, first and foremost, to respond to every communication from a man. And the response is expected to be one of willingness and attentiveness. It is considered attractive if she is a bit uncertain (the opposite of explicit). Women are expected to be warm and open, and in the context of approaches from male strangers, warmth lengthens the encounter, raises his expectations, increases his investment, and, at best, wastes time. At worst, it serves the man who has sinister intent by providing much of the information he will need to evaluate and then control his prospective victim.

Too Many Details

When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.
The person who recognizes the strategy of Too Many Details sees the forest while simultaneously being able to see the few trees that really matter. When approached by a stranger while walking on some city street at night, no matter how engaging he might be, you must never lose sight of the context: He is a stranger who approached you. A good exercise is to occasionally remind yourself of where you are and what your relationship is to the people around you. With a date who stays beyond his welcome, for example, no matter how jokey or charming he may be, a woman can keep herself focused on context simply by thinking, “I have asked him to leave twice.” The defense for too many details is simple: bring the context into conscious thought.

Typecasting

A man labels a woman in some slightly critical way, hoping she’ll feel compelled to prove that his opinion is not accurate. “You’re probably too snobbish to talk to the likes of me,” a man might say, and the woman will cast off the mantle of “snob” by talking to him. A man tells a woman, “You don’t look like someone who reads the newspaper,” and she sets out to prove that she is intelligent and well-informed.
Typecasting always involves a slight insult, and usually one that is easy to refute. But since it is the response itself that the typecaster seeks, the defense is silence, acting as if the words weren’t even spoken. If you engage, you can win the point, but you might lose something greater. Not that it matters what some stranger thinks anyway, but the typecaster doesn’t even believe what he says is true. He just believes that it will work.

Loan Sharking

“He wanted to be allowed to help you because that would place you in his debt, and the fact that you owe a person something makes it hard to ask him to leave you alone.” The more traditional loan shark gladly lends one amount but cruelly collects much more. Likewise, the predatory criminal generously offers assistance but is always calculating the debt. The defense is to bring two rarely remembered facts into consciousness: He approached me, and I didn’t ask for any help. Then, though a person may turn out to be just a kindly stranger, watch for other signals.
We are all familiar with the stranger who offers to help a woman with her groceries; most often he is a fairly unsophisticated loan shark looking to pick someone up. The debt he records in his ledger can usually be paid off quite easily, just a little talk will do it. But he has something in common with the predatory criminal who imposes his counterfeit charity into someone’s life: motive. There is no spiritually minded movement dedicated to lightening the burden of women by carrying their groceries. At its best, loan sharking is a strategy on a par with asking a woman, “Do you come here often?” At its worst, it exploits a victim’s sense of obligation and fairness.

*It’s important to clarify that forced teaming, too many details, charm, niceness, typecasting and loan sharking are all in daily use by people who have no sinister intent. You might have already recognized several of these strategies as those commonly used by men who want little more than an opportunity to engage a woman in conversation. I don’t mean to cramp the style of some crude Casanova, but times have changed, and we men can surely develop some approaches which are not steeped in deceit and manipulation.*
The Unsolicited Promise

The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive. Promises are used to convince us of an intention, but they are not guarantees. A guarantee is a promise that offers some compensation if the speaker fails to deliver; he commits to make it all right again if things don’t go as he says they would. But promises offer no such collateral. They are the very hollowest instruments of speech, showing nothing more than the speaker’s desire to convince you of something. So, aside from meeting all unsolicited promises with skepticism (whether or not they are about safety), it’s useful to ask yourself: Why does this person need to convince me? The answer, it turns out, is not about him—it is about you. The reason a person promises something, the reason he needs to convince you, is that he can see that you are not convinced. You have doubt (which is a messenger of intuition), likely because there is reason to doubt. The great gift of the unsolicited promise is that the speaker tells you so himself! …Always, in every context, be suspicious of the unsolicited promise.

Discounting the Word “No”

“No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.
In situations in which unsolicited offers of assistance are appropriate, such as approaches by a salesman or flight attendant, it is simply annoying if you have to decline three times. With a stranger, however, refusal to hear no can be an important survival signal, as with a suitor, a friend, a boyfriend, even a husband.
Declining to hear “no” is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of “no,” because it sets the stage for more efforts to control. If you let someone talk you out of the word “no,” you might as well wear a sign that reads, “You are in charge.”
The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give everweakening refusals and then give in. Another common response that serves the criminal is to negotiate (“I really appreciate your offer, but let me try to do it on my own first”). Negotiations are about possibilities, and providing access to someone who makes you apprehensive is not a possibility you want to keep on the agenda. I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.
The man in the underground parking lot who approaches a woman as she puts groceries in the trunk of her car and offers assistance may be a gentleman or he may be conducting an interview. The woman whose shoulders tense slightly, who looks intimidated and shyly says, “No, thanks, I think I’ve got it,” may be his victim. Conversely, the woman who turns toward him, raises her hands to the STOP position, and says directly, “I don’t want your help,” is less likely to be his victim.
A decent man would understand her reaction or, more likely, wouldn’t have approached a woman alone in the first place, unless she really had some obvious need. If a man doesn’t understand the reaction and stomps off dejected, that’s fine too. In fact, any reaction—even anger—from a decent man who had no sinister intent is preferable to continued attention from a violent man who might have used your concern about rudeness to his advantage.
A woman alone who needs assistance is actually far better off choosing someone and asking for help, as opposed to waiting for an unsolicited approach. The person you choose is nowhere near as likely to bring you hazard as is the person who chooses you. That’s because the possibility that you’ll inadvertently select a predatory criminal for whom you are the right victim type is very remote. I encourage women to ask other women for help when they need it, and it’s likewise safer to accept an offer from a woman than from a man. (Unfortunately, women rarely make such offers to other women, and I wish more would.)
I want to clarify that many men offer help without any sinister or selfserving intent, with no more in mind than kindness and chivalry, but I have been addressing those times that men refuse to hear the word “No,” and that is not chivalrous—it is dangerous.

Whether or not men can relate to it or believe it or accept it, that is the way it is. Women, particularly in big cities, live with a constant wariness. Their lives are literally on the line in ways men just don’t experience. Ask some man you know, “When is the last time you were concerned or afraid that another person would harm you?” Many men cannot recall an incident within years. Ask a woman the same question and most will give you a recent example or say, “Last night,” “Today,” or even “Every day.”
Still, women’s concerns about safety are frequently the subject of critical comments from the men in their lives. One woman told me of constant ridicule and sarcasm from her boyfriend whenever she discussed fear or safety. He called her precautions silly and asked, “How can you live like that?” To which she replied, “How could I not?”
I have a message for women who feel forced to defend their safety concerns: tell Mister I-Know-Everything-About-Danger that he has nothing to contribute to the topic of your personal security. Tell him that your survival instinct is a gift from Nature that knows a lot more about your safety than he does. And tell him that nature does not require his approval.
It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different—men and women live in different worlds. I don’t remember where I first heard this simple description of one dramatic contrast between the genders, but it is strikingly accurate: At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.

Advice on how to proceed

Hey people
I have been meaning to write this letter for a very long-ass time but life and my own hesitations got in between. So, basically, I am a 24-year-old male with a 19-year-old GF. We met in University, she was a fresher in Bachelors of X and I was in the final year of the same course.
She is from a conservative family, so she had no boyfriends ever till she came to University (confirmed by a cousin of mine, who was her classmate in school), though she had mostly male friends. She didn't know what happened in sex (except that learnt from poorly taught classes in school), let alone terms like 69 or BJ ( this situation isn't really that uncommon here in India as you would think).
I was her first BF, first kiss, first male hug, you get the gist. I, on the other hand, made my first GF at the age of 21 around the end of my 2nd year of University. My current GF is my third relationship in my whole life.
So, in August 2019, I was announcing about some society in our college in the classes of 1st year, when I realized that this particular class(having my current GF, let's call her G) is of the juniors having the same specialisation as of mine. So, I also told them I was available for any help as a caring senior.
Then in the evening, I proceeded to send friend requests on Instagram to many of the fresher girls (this tactic worked smoothly for me in getting into a relationship earlier also). When G accepted my friend request (unaware of my ploy to send requests to many girls as she wasn't a hosteller), she requested me to teach her maths. From there on, began our story; meeting, chatting, doing Maths, etc. Also, we had both become each other's support systems- we connected that well on a mental level. (I have borderline bipolar syndrome so things can get difficult for me at times).
We both were avid readers and also deeply emotional persons. We got on really well, though our then friendship was scorned by her then close friend A (female) because she knew about my past flings ( I was really popular in the college at that point as a multi-talented, intelligent and famous guy who said anything that came on his mind) and my reputation as a wannabe Casanova( we all have pasts that are exaggerated) and would mock G many times about it before the whole class which triggered her anxiety (which she has been suffering from 6 years from the day she has known that her dad considers her an illegitimate child - I had to get it out of her by prodding her several times bout the cause of her anxiety). Her anxiety causes her physical pain ( It's a real thing, I also didn't know until I looked it up and read thoroughly about it).
G told me about her feelings of attraction for me soon ( after consulting with her female & male bestie who were a couple then themselves) and I rejoiced as I was finally getting into a relationship after like 6 months (my ex was a horny girl with whom my relationship worked just coz we never talked much when we met and just reached the 3rd base - I get uneasy when it comes to sex so I am a voluntary virgin, anything before sex though I really enjoy, especially kissing- broke up with her coz she was a bitch who was domineering, loved creating drama and never took the blame for her mistakes) - that too with an amazing, understanding, funny, intelligent and kind-hearted girl.
But A would always create situations that would cause us to not meet for days on end as G had to go home as soon as the classes end coz she lived outside the college. Also, comes the fact that G was clueless how intimacy and relationships work so, she would not allow me to touch her (a bit rare but still in the realms of possibility for my culture). Also, she never hid anything from her mom so hiding about us made her uneasy too. All this started to create rifts between us to the point where we rarely met and I was planning to break up.
I gave her a choice-either be her mom's daughter and stay single or properly become my GF and spend time with me IRL and not only on phone calls. A saw this opportunity and started giving G bullshit about how I was a manipulator and shit and created more wedges. It all got to the point where I just plainly caught her on the way home and drilled into her how she was being a lazy ass person and either a) just go away completely or b) leave A and finally give the guy she claims to like a proper relationship.
So, A got deleted out of our lives ( December 2020) and we had for once a proper relationship with meetups, hugs, affection and trust, though since earlier actions of A had made G terribly anxious to even tell anyone about us in public, we kept our relationship secret, I did it grudgingly though. One day I kissed her by closing her eyes. It was her first kiss in the whole life and she was horrified initially (she had been raised so conservative that even hugs for her meant a thing to be done only by intimate people in secrecy) but soon started to enjoy them and even miss them on the days I visited home.
We had it all now for weeks- intimacy, comfort, mental equality, no annoying friends, and we supported each other through thick and thin. She is really mature and wise for her age and isn't into the Tiktok ruined shit like other teenagers. She is classy and has improved my dressing sense and social media presentation too. Anything that could have been a potential ruining point for any relationship was talked over immediately and resolved. We both understood and appreciated the value of communication. Though, for G, her communication increased as the amount of trust she had on me gained.
G didn't even mind my exes - she was sad for them having lost out on such a great guy (her words). I had also gotten 2 job offers recently then while still in college. Life was great. I was set to achieve my lifelong goal of being a teacher, raise my financial standards by hard work and would after 4 or so years, get married ( I know the SMACK is coming but it's like less than 5% people above 28 here are single by choice, marriage is a societal end goal). Then struck the Corona- and we all were locked in our homes. Conversations died as no one had topics anymore, my parents didn't allow me to have phone calls more than half an hour (parents live with their sons here all through their life). Add to this, we had very limited internet connectivity as we were saving our data to be used very infrequently. Things started to go awry.
Also, during this time, she got to know that I had told my cousin (mentioned in the start) about us which could possibly lead to her parents getting to know she has a relationship ( again very common here, a conservative family doesn't allow relationships- though male friends are fine). She told me that even on being clearly told not to discuss our relationship with ANYONE who knew her IRL, I had done so and had broken her trust. She would now give only mono word replies- both in chat and on calls which would anger me more which in turn made her even quieter due to her anxiety and also the fact that earlier in lockdown, I wasn't giving her enough time and now didn't even listen to her when she had anxiety multiple times recently while I would narrate my problems and then just leave citing my parents, (she is correct partially- I give her that) made her discontent now.
As I was a definition nice guy then, I calmed her down over the days and regained her trust. My degree completed but due to the Covid, one company bailed on me and the other delayed my joining indefinitely ( I am still waiting to this day). I was in the dumps and jobless. With no future insight and my parents to care for her. My mother started frantically suggesting me found anywhere- FB, newspapers, word of mouth etc. which weren't even for my academic qualifications but her erratic behaviour made me even depressed. My father was chill but he was completely Zen-like and advocated for me to stay at home for a whole year. I wasn't even allowed to go outside the home while they both went to their jobs.
It was G who supported me through it all- made me reassured of myself to start my own coaching, pick freelance and make me remember my college days of glory. Earlier, I was the supporting person, but now she was doing the supporting. I got up on my two feet and started preparing for Govt. Jobs and teaching a few children side by side. I also started watching channels like yours. As of today, I have cleared the prelims of one and two others are lined up next month. I am also in talks with a coaching institute to take my interview as a teacher.
All this thanks to G and her unwavering faith in me. As my mental space improved, so did our relationship. I used quite a few advice taught by you to "wear the pants" in my life. I started calling her out on her bullshit as soon as I sensed and not like I had handled such situations in past. I also observed that her female bestie ( not G but also mentioned earlier) is against our relationship as she considers me a bad guy ( HINT: She broke up with her boyfriend, lol and is a feminist ), it is better to not be running around the world shouting that I have a GF and G might actually right here. We go on dates now every month (due to my busy schedule) and man, the kisses are still magical and things beyond that too.
I told my parents to let me live my life by my own choices and stop babying me into unnecessary restrictions. I also told them I am serious about G which has made them less nosy about our call timing and stuff. I started gymming, got back in shape ( though I have left it for now as I have a Govt. exam next week and the time is needed for revision), started going out with my hometown friends whom I had now met after 4 years to inculcate male friendships again in my life and a trip to mountains with my cousins.
I also knocked into G again the importance of immediate communication. As G talks more now, her anxiety though still present has decreased to quite a less amount than in our rough patch.
We are madly in love now and understand each other like the backs of her hands. She trusts me a lot and so do I. All the hard times have gotten us closer to the point where she doesn't even think about any guy other than me and gets wet even by hearing my voice in intimate talks (lets just say I checked it in the most obvious manner). She also told us to two of her friends (it's a start) and normalizing to the idea of making us public.
I have also realized that you gotta take your stands to make people in your life and relationships respect you and your needs. Be considerate but also mark boundaries now what you can't stand.
We discussed marriage and her response was, "Who marries before 30?" which clearly tells us about her maturity. I also don't wanna marry at least till I am settled and 28ish as she is the daughter of a well-reputed and rich family while I belong to a middle class one. Though she really wants to marry me, she is still just 19 and takes life one day at a time.
So, after all this story, my question to you is - How do I ensure we stay together happily for long and ensure I don't have any more hiccups in my relationship?

what is casanova mean video

A “Casanova” is a suave man who tries to seduce as many women as possible. The real Casanova, Italian playboy Giacomo Casanova, famously bedded over 120 women throughout his life. However, there’s more to being a Casanova than that. Being charismatic, charming, confident, and attentive are all a part of the classic Casanova lifestyle. Casanova saw women only as sex objects, even in fatherhood: “I have never been able to understand how a father could tenderly love his charming daughter without having slept with her at least once,” he wrote. Which brings us to Leonilda, the 16- or 17-year-old girl Casanova met in 1761. Upon discovering Leonilda was his daughter, Casanova decided it would be wrong to marry her but still ... Casanova does not have a consistent definition but here are a few typical examples: Casanova — 1) A man who is amorously and gallantly attentive to women. 2) A promiscuous man; a philanderer. Casanova — a man with a reputation for having many amorous adventures; rake; Don Juan.. Casanova — lover; especially a man who is a promiscuous and unscrupulous lover Definition of a Casanova : A Casanova is a smooth-talking charmer who has mastered the art of finding, meeting, attracting and seducing beautiful women into the bedroom. One he accomplishes his... The Casanova family name was found in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920. The most Casanova families were found in the USA in 1920. In 1840 there were 3 Casanova families living in Louisiana. This was 100% of all the recorded Casanova's in the USA. Louisiana had the highest population of Casanova families in 1840. Use census records and voter lists to see where ... The definition of a casanova is a man who is passionate about women and has many lovers. An example of casanova is the story of Don Juan. noun. 8. What does CASANOVA stand for? List of 2 CASANOVA definitions. Top CASANOVA abbreviation meanings updated December 2020 Source(s): quot casanova quot mean: https://biturl.im/eEkTF. 0 0. chrlsshore. Lv 7. 1 decade ago "New house". A man who is a womaniser is referred to as a "Casanova" after some Italian guy (whose name was Jachomo Casanova) who had it off with any woman at every available opportunity. 2 0. How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer. Sign in. erica. 7 years ago. A guy ... Talking about not falling in love, he says he is not attracted to a woman without sounding mean and while saving her face: Yet, I did not surrender to her charms. On showing his D: (..) Playing the coquette, she gets angry because I did not conceal from her looks the very apparent proof that her charms had some effect on a particular part of my being. And on having sex with a virgin: And after ...

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casanova meaning and pronunciation - YouTube

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single word requests - Feminine equivalent for Casanova ...

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An Updated Definitive List of the Bodega Boy's Aliases — Part 4!