Hello, my name is Abdiel, I am playing WAR and DRK (I would say both about equally well). I've been playing the game and raiding on and off since early ARR with long-ish breaks. I came back most recently for Eden's Promise, and cleared Promise, Asphodelos, and Abyssos 1-3 with the same static. Unfortunately we had some personal issues and disbanded before we cleared P8S. (Nothing secret, I can talk about details in private, I just don't think they are relevant for a first impression.)
I took a break for about half a year, came back about a month ago, and finished P8S in PF. I found what I thought would be a competent static for Anabaseios, however it turns out I was lied to about the other members' capabilities and we got hard stuck on "football" in P9S. I am bailing (yes the static leader knows about this, I am not a person who hides anything like this) and looking for a group that can get through the tier in a reasonable time: for me this means 4-6 weeks, but given the lateness of this post I am willing to compromise, as long as you can be honest with me about your expectations. I pride myself on being able to learn mechanics and pick up strats extremely fast, so if your group is past P9S already I give you my word that I will catch up quickly if you give me a chance.
I have some experience with blind prog (only individual fights, never cleared an entire tier blind), and in my previous static I was also coming up with strats, doing callouts, and making written guides for the fights. I can show examples if requested. I have tried getting into some ultimates and got decently far into UWU and UCOB, started some DSR (got to eyes), never cleared an ultimate though. Would definitely want to do that at some point later if I can find a good group.
IGN: Abdiel [email protected]
Discord: Abdiel Kavash#2431
logs: https://www.fflogs.com/characteid/15238025
Note that due to the aforementioned problems with my group my logs from Abyssos are quite subpar; you can look at Asphodelos, Promise, or more recently Golbez or other EX to get a better idea of what level of performance you can expect from me.
I am available basically 24 hours a day, I set my own time for work so I can play at any time. I prefer longer raid days (4-6+ hours) and fewer of them, but I can fit into any schedule.
I would be happy to talk more in a PM or on voice chat.

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1. 🔥 Ecosystem Rewards Update:
2. 🚀 xBoost launch:
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On May 1st, we distributed April's Ecosystem Rewards, with over 842,663.99 $OFE tokens distributed to 600+ validated holders. The rewards were calculated at a 10% APR using "The Value" calculation💰
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Statistics:
$OFE - Utility token:
Holders on MvX & BSC:15,293 /183
Transactions: 80,963 /3,416
Circulating supply: 372,580,487 OFE

1. 🔥 Ecosystem Rewards Update:
2. 🚀 xBoost launch:
An innovative investment tool that empowers users to optimize their digital assets and maximize returns. With a 20% bonus reward and a 12-month DCA for dust conversion, users are actively boosting their $OFE tokens. 🔥
3. 🔥 Ofero Connect Event Sibiu:
In May, we organized a successful Ofero Connect event at Joyme in Sibiu.
Watch the highlights of this thrilling event here:
👉 https://youtube.com/watch?v=K-mLX24UfLs.
4. 🔐 Ofero Staking:
You can now stake your $EGLD with us and enjoy the benefits. Take advantage of the 0% fees and stake any amount you desire for the next 30 days. Maximize your earnings with Ofero Staking. 💰
5. 🌐 Crypto Valley Conference:
Ofero Network will be attending the Crypto Valley Conference, scheduled at Hochschule Luzern in Rotkreuz, Switzerland, on June 1-2, 2023.
6. 🌱 Ecosystem Rewards:
On May 1st, we distributed April's Ecosystem Rewards, with over 842,663.99 $OFE tokens distributed to 600+ validated holders. The rewards were calculated at a 10% APR using "The Value" calculation💰
7. ⚒ OFE BEP-20 Seed Sale Launch:
We successfully launched the BEP-20 Seed Sale on the Binance SmaRT chain.
8. 📣 New Policy Announcement:
We introduced a new policy stating that only $OFE holders are eligible to receive payment from team funds for any activity, including marketing. This policy aims to incentivize $OFE holders to contribute to the growth and development of the Ofero Network. 💪
9. 🤝 Partnership Announcements
🔥 Proteo DeFi, bringing users a more robust and cutting-edge #DeFi experience within the MultiversX ecosystem.
🔥 Buidly's xDust Converter, in addition to MEX, USDC, and WEGLD, users can swap their dust into our native token, $OFE.
10. 🛄 Claim Function Enable
A claim function that allows users to unlock and claim their $OFE tokens from the migration smart contract on Ofero.Exchange.
11. 📢 Exciting Job Opportunity
Join the Sales Team at ofero.ro, a blockchain-based advertising project within the Ofero Network.
12. 🚀 Trading Contest:
Battle of the Titans is live.
Trade pair OFE/EGLD.
It is scheduled to run from May 29th, 20:00 UTC, 2023, to June 5th, 19:59 UTC, 2023.
The top 10 traders, determined by app.kattana.io, will share a prize pool of 🤑 20 EGLD, paid in $OFE. 📈📊💹📉
​
Statistics:
$OFE - Utility token:
Holders on MvX & BSC:15,293 /183
Transactions: 80,963 /3,416
Circulating supply: 372,580,487 OFE

Hello! I'm looking for some people to play games and hang out with. Now I play an assortment of games but ill get to that in a minute.First I would prefer if you were around my age 16-19 and he timezone/region can be whatever because my sleep schedule is wack when I don't work. I'm also looking for people who are willing to message each other. I also would prefer if you had a mic because it makes communicating a lot easier.
Now on about myself, I enjoy lots of anime and have seen enough to where I can have long conversations (a little too much lol). I've seen A LOT of it so I would be down to watch or even rewatch some. I like a lot of genres of games such as Fps, survival, space,rogue-like, automation etc. I'm a night owl when I don't work so ill be on almost the whole day. I also can have a dark sense of humour at times and don't mind if you have one as well.
Here are just a few that I have been playing or would possibly want to play
Stardew Valley
Valorant
Terraria/Modded
Valheim
Risk of Rain 2
Apex legends (main)
Starbound
Guilty Gear Strive
league
Lost Ark (basically at the beginning)
and possibly Maplestory (idk looked interesting)
and many other parties or games of the genre that I mentioned. (also your skill level in gaming doesn't really matter to me, as long as you can have a good time while playing)
I'm also down to just be on a call and talk while we play different games or if you want to vent about your day.
That's about it for this post! Just be around my age and timezone and it should be good.
message me your discord and an intro about yourself (age, name, likes, whatever you want).
also don't be shocked if it takes me a while to respond sometimes, I get swamped with work quite often!

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There are instincts that you develop when you’re a parent. If you don’t have any children it might be a little hard to understand. If you have a toddler, for example, and they’re in the other room and silent for more than a few seconds, there’s a good chance they’re up to no good. I take that back, most of the time they’re doing nothing, but you still have to check. You feel a compulsion to check. I don’t think it’s a learned skill, I think it’s an actual instinct.
Paleolithic parents who didn’t check on their toddlers every few minutes, just to double check that they weren’t being stalked by smilodons were unlikely to have grandchildren and pass on their genes. You just feel you need to check, like getting goosebumps, a compulsion. I suppose it’s the same reason little kids are always demanding you look at them and what they’re doing.
I think that instinct starts to atrophy as your kids grow. They start learning to do things for themselves, and before you know it, they’re after their own privacy, not your attention. I don’t think it ever goes away though. I expect, decades from now, my own grown kids will visit and bring my grandkids with them. And the second I hear a baby crying in the earliest morning hours, I’ll be alert and ready for anything, sure as any old soldier who hears his name whispered in the dark of night.
I felt that alarm just the other day. First time in years. My boy came home from riding bikes with a couple of his friends. I’m pretty sure they worked out a scam where they asked each of their parents for a different new console for Christmas, and now they spend their weekends traveling between the three houses so they can play on all of them.
We all live in a nice neighborhood. A newer development than the one I grew up in, same town though. It’s the kind of place where kids are always playing in the streets, and the cars all routinely do under 20. My wife and I make sure the kids have helmets and pads, and we’re fine with the boy going out biking with his friends, as long as they stay in the neighborhood.
You know, a lot of people in my generation take some weird sort of pride in how irresponsible we used to be when we were young. I never wore a helmet. Rode to places, without telling any adults, that we never should have ridden to. Me and my friends would make impromptu jumps off of makeshift ramps and try to do stupid tricks, based loosely on stunts we’d seen on TV. Other people my age seem to wax nostalgic for that stuff and pretend it makes them somehow better people. I don’t get it. Sometimes I look back and shudder. We were lucky we escaped with only occasional bruises and road burns. It could have gone so much worse.
My son and his buddies came bustling in the front door at about 2 PM on a Saturday. They did the usual thing of raiding the kitchen for juice and his mother’s brownies, and I took that as my cue to abandon the television in the living room for my office. I was hardly noticing the chaos, by this point, it was becoming a regular weekend occurrence. But as I was just leaving, I caught something in the chatter. My boy said something about, “... that guy who was following us.”
He hadn’t said it any louder or more clearly than anything else they’d been talking about, all that stuff I’d been filtering out. Yet some deeper core process in my brain stem heard it, interpreted it, then hit the red alert button. My blood ran cold and every hair on my skin stood at attention.
I turned around and asked “Somebody followed you? What are you talking about?” I wasn’t consciously aware of how strict and stern my voice came out, yet when the jovial smiles dropped off of their faces it was apparent that it had been so.
“Huh?” my son said, his voice high-pitched and talking fast, like when he thinks he’s in trouble and needs to explain. “We thought we saw somebody following us. There wasn’t though. We didn’t really see anybody and we’d just spooked ourselves.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Nothing? We really didn’t see anybody! Honest! I just saw something out of the corner of my eye! But there wasn’t really nobody there!”
“Yeah!,” said one of his buds. “Peripheral! Peripheral vision! I thought maybe I saw something too, but when I looked I didn’t see anything. I don’t have my glasses with me, but when I really looked I got a good look and there was nothing.”
The three boys had that semi-smiling but still concerned look that this was only a bizarre misunderstanding, but they were still being very sincere. “Were they in a car?”
“No, Dad, you don’t get it,” my boy continued, “They were small. We thought it was a kid.”
“Yeah,” said the third boy. “We thought maybe it was Tony Taylor’s stupid kid sister shadowing us. Getting close to throwing water balloons. Just cause she did that before.”
“If you didn’t get a good look how did you know it was a kid?”
“Because it was small!” my kid explained, though that wasn’t helping much. “What I mean is, at first I thought it was behind a little bush. It was way too small a bush to hide a grown-up. That’s why we thought it was probably Tony’s sister.”
“But you didn’t actually see Tony’s sister?” I asked.
“Nah,” said one of his buds. “And now that I think about it, that bush was probably too small for his sister too. It would have been silly. Like when a cartoon character hides behind a tiny object.”
“That’s why we think it was just in our heads,” explained the other boy, “That and the pole.”
“Yeah,” my son said. “The park on 14th and Taylor?” That was just a little community park, a single city block. Had a playground, lawn, a few trees, and some benches. “Anyway, we were riding past that, took a right on Taylor. And we were talking about how weird it would be if somebody really were following us. That’s when Brian thought he saw something. Behind a telephone pole.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it either,” the friend, Brian, “explained. Just thought I did. Know how you get up late at night to use the bathroom or whatever and you look down the hallway and you see a jacket or an office chair or something and because your eyes haven’t adjusted you think you see a ghost or burglar or something? Anyway, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned there wasn’t anything there.”
“Yeah, it was just like sometimes that happens, except this time it happened twice on the same bike ride, is all,” the other friend explained.
“And you’re sure there was nothing there?”
“Sure we’re sure,” my boy said. “We know because that time we checked. We each rode our bikes around the pole and there was nothing. Honest!”
“Hmmm,” I said. The whole thing seemed reasonable and nothing to be concerned about, you’d think.. The boys seemed to relax at my supposed acceptance. “Alright, sounds good. Hey, just let me know before you leave the house again, alright?” They all rushed to seem agreeable as I left the room, then quickly resumed their snacking and preceded to play their games.
I kept my ear out, just in case. My boy, at least this time, dutifully told me his friends were about to leave. He wasn’t very happy with me when I said they wouldn’t be riding home on their bikes, I was going to drive them home. The other boys didn’t complain, but I suppose it wasn’t their place, so my boy did the advocating for them, which I promptly ignored. I hate doing that, ignoring my kid’s talkback. My dad was the same way. It didn’t help that I struggled to get both of their bikes in the trunk, and it was a pain to get them back out again. My boy sulked in the front seat on the short ride back home. Arms folded on chest, eyes staring straight ahead, that lip thing they do. He seemed embarrassed for having what he thought was an over-protective parent. I suppose he was angry at me as well for acting, as far as he knew, irrationally. Maybe he thought he was being punished for some infraction he didn’t understand.
Well, it only got worse when we got home. I told him he wasn’t allowed to go out alone on his bike anymore. I’d only had to do that once before, when he was grounded, and back then he’d known exactly what he’d done wrong and he had it coming. Now? Well, he was confused, furious, maybe betrayed, probably a little brokenhearted? I can’t blame him. He tramped upstairs to his room to await the return of his mother, who was certain to give a sympathetic ear. I can’t imagine how upset he’ll be if he checks the garage tomorrow and finds I’ve removed his tires, just in case.
I wish I could explain it to him. I don’t even know how.
Where should I even begin? The town?
When I was about my son’s age I had just seen that movie, The Goonies. It had just come out in theaters. I really liked that movie, felt a strong connection. A lot of people do, can’t blame them, sort of a timeless classic. Except I wasn’t really into pirate’s treasure or the Fratellis, what really made me connect was a simple single shot, still in the first act. It’s right after they cross the threshold, and leave the house on their adventure. It was a shot of the boys, from above, maybe a crane shot or a helicopter shot, as they’re riding their bikes down a narrow forested lane, great big evergreen trees densely growing on the side of the road, they’re all wearing raincoats and the road is still wet from recent rain.
That was my childhood. I’ve spent my whole life in the Pacific Northwest. People talk to outsiders about the rain, and they might picture a lot of rainfall, but it’s not the volume, it’s the duration. We don’t get so much rain, it just drizzles slowly, on and on, for maybe eight or nine months out of the year. It doesn’t matter where I am, inside a house, traveling far abroad, anywhere I am I can close my eyes and still smell the air on a chilly afternoon, playing outdoors with my friends.
It’s not petrichor, that sudden intense smell you get when it first starts to rain after a long dry spell. No, this was almost the opposite, a clean smell, almost the opposite of a scent, since the rain seemed to scrub the air clean. The strongest scent and I mean that in the loosest sense possible, must have been the evergreen needles. Not pine needles, those were too strong, and there weren’t that many pines anyway. Douglas fir and red cedar predominated, again the root ‘domination’ seems hyperbole. Yet those scents were there, ephemeral as it is. Also, there was a sort of pleasant dirtiness to the smell, at least when you rode bikes. It wasn’t dirt, or mud, or dust. Dust couldn’t have existed except perhaps for a few fleeting weeks in August. I think, looking back, it was the mud puddles. All the potholes in all the asphalt suburban roads would fill up after rain with water the color of chocolate milk. We’d swerve our BMX bikes, or the knock-off brands, all the way across the street just to splash through those puddles and test our “suspensions.,” meaning our ankles and knees. The smell was always stronger after that. It had an earthiness to it. Perhaps it was petrichor’s lesser-known watery cousin.
There were other sensations too, permanently seared into my brain like grill marks. A constant chilliness that was easy to ignore, until you started working up a good heart rate on your bike, then you noticed your lungs were so cold it felt like burning. The sound of your tires on the wet pavement, particularly when careening downhill at high speed. For some reason, people in the mid-80s used to like to decorate their front porches with cheap, polyester windsocks. They were often vividly colored, usually rainbow, like prototype pride flags. When an occasional wind stirred up enough to gust, the windsocks would flap, and owning to the water-soaked polyester, make a wet slapping sound. It was loud, it was distinct, but you learned to ignore it as part of the background, along with the cawing of crows and distant passing cars.
That was my perception of Farmingham as a kid. The town itself? Just a typical Pacific Northwest town. That might not mean much for younger people or modern visitors, but there was a time when such towns were all the same. They were logging towns. It was the greatest resource of the area from the late 19th century, right up until about the 80s, when the whole thing collapsed. Portland, Seattle, they had a few things going on beyond just the timber industry, but all the hundreds of little towns and small cities revolved around logging, and my town was no exception.
I remember going to the museum. It had free admission, and it was a popular field trip destination for the local school system. It used to be the City Hall, a weird Queen Anne-style construction. Imagine a big Victorian house, but blown up to absurd proportions, and with all sorts of superfluous decorations. Made out of local timber, of course. They had a hall for art, I can’t even remember why, now. Maybe they were local artists. I only remember paintings of sailboats and topless women, which was a rare sight for a kid at the time. There was a hall filled with 19th-century household artifacts. Chamber pots and weird children's toys.
Then there was the logging section, which was the bulk of the museum. It’s strange how different things seemed to be in the early days of the logging industry, despite being only about a hundred years old, from my perspective in the 1980s. If you look back a hundred years from today, in the 1920s, you had automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances, jazz music, radio programs, flappers, it doesn’t feel that far removed, does it? No TV, no internet, but it wouldn’t be that strange. 1880s? Different world.
Imagine red cedars, so big you could have a full logging crew, arms stretched out, just barely manage to encircle one for a photographer. Felling a single tree was the work of days. Men could rest and eat their lunches in the shelter of a cut made into a trunk, and not worry for safety or room. They had to cut their own little platforms into the trees many feet off the ground, just so the trunk was a little bit thinner, and thus hours of labor saved. They used those long, flexible two-man saws. And double-bit axes. They worked in the gloom of the shade with old gas lanterns. Once cut down from massive logs thirty feet in diameter, they’d float the logs downhill in sluices, like primitive wooden make-shift water slides. Or they’d haul them down to the nearest river, the logs pulled by donkeys on corduroy roads. They’d lay large amounts of grease on the roads, so the logs would slide easily. You could still smell the grease on the old tools on display in the museum. The bigger towns had streets where the loggers would slide the logs down greased skids all the way down to the sea, where they’d float in big logjams until the mills were ready for processing. They’d call such roads “skid-rows.” Because of all the activity, they’d end up being the worst parts of town. Local citizens wouldn’t want to live there, due to all the stink and noise. They’d be on the other side of the brothels and the opium dens. It would be the sort of place where the destitute and the insane would find themselves when they’d finally lost anything. To this day, “skidrow” remains a euphemism for the part of a city where the homeless encamp.
That was the lore I’d learned as a child. That was my “ancestry” I was supposed to respect and admire, which I did, wholeheartedly. There were things they left out, though. Things that you might have suspected, from a naive perspective, would be perfect for kids, all the folklore that came with the logging industry. The ghost stories, and the tall tales. I would have eaten that up. They do talk about that kind of thing in places far removed from the Pacific Northwest. But I had never heard about any of it. Things like the Hidebehind. No, that I’d have to discover for myself.
There were four of us on those bike adventures. Myself. Ralph, my best friend. A tough guy, the bad boy, the most worldly of us, which is a strange thing to say about an eight-year-old kid. India, an archetypal ‘80s tomboy. She was the coolest person I knew at the time. Looking back, I wonder what her home life was like. I think I remember problematic warning signs that I couldn’t have recognized when I was so young, but now raise flags. Then there was Ben. A goofy kid, a wild mop of hair, coke bottle glasses, type 1 diabetic which seemed to make him both a bit pampered by his mother, who was in charge of all his insulin, diet, and schedule, and conversely a real risk taker when she wasn’t around.
When we first saw it…
No, wait. This was the problem with starting the story. Where does it all begin? I’ll need to talk about my Grandfather as well. I’ve had two different perspectives on my Grandfather, on the man that he was. The first was the healthy able-bodied grandparent I’d known as a young child. Then there was the man, as I learned about him after he had passed.
There was a middle period, from when I was 6 to when I was 16, when I hardly understood him at all, as he was hit with a double whammy of both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's. His decline into an invalid was both steep and long drawn out. That part didn’t reflect who he was as a person.
What did I know of him when I was little? Well I knew he and my grandmother had a nice big house and some farmland, out in the broad flat valley north of Farmingham. Dairy country. It had been settled by Dutch immigrants back in the homesteading days. His family had been among the first pioneers in the county too. It didn’t register to me then that his surname was Norwegian, not Dutch. I knew he had served in the Navy in World War II, which I was immensely proud of for reasons I didn’t know why. I knew he had a job as a butcher in a nearby rural supermarket. He was a bit of a farmer too, more as a hobby and a side gig. He had a few cattle, but mostly grew and harvested hay to sell to the local dairies. I knew he had turned his garage into a machine shop, and could fix damn near anything. From the flat tires on my bicycle to the old flat-bed truck he’d haul hay with, to an old 1950s riding lawnmower he somehow managed to keep in working order. I knew he could draw a really cool cartoon cowboy, I knew he loved to watch football, and I knew the whiskers on his chin were very pokey, and they’d tickle you when he kissed you on the cheek, and that when you tried to rub the sensation away he’d laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then there were the parts of his life that I’d learn much later. Mostly from odd passing comments from relatives, or things I’d find in the public records. Like how he’d been a better grandfather than a father. Or how his life as I knew it had been a second, better life. He’d been born among the Norwegian settler community, way up in the deep, dark, forest-shrouded hills that rimmed the valley. He’d been a logger in his youth. Technologically he was only a generation or two from the ones I’d learned about in the museum. They’d replaced donkeys with diesel engines and corduroy roads with narrow gauge rail. It was still the same job, though. Dirty, dangerous, dark. Way back into those woods, living in little logging camps, civilization was always a several-day hike out. It became a vulgar sort of profession, filled with violent men, reprobates, and thieves. When my grandfather’s father was murdered on his front porch by a lunatic claiming he’d been wronged somehow, my grandfather hiked out of there, got into town, and joined the Navy. He vowed never to go back. The things he’d seen out in those woods were no good. He’d kept that existence away from me. Anyways…
Tommy Barker was the first of us to go missing. I say ‘us’ as if I knew him personally. I didn’t. He went to Farmingham Middle School, other side of town, and several grades above us. From our perspective, he may as well have been an adult living overseas.
Yet it felt like we got to know him. His face was everywhere, on TV, all over telephone poles. Everybody was talking about him. After he didn’t return from a friend’s house, everybody just sort of assumed, or maybe hoped, that he’d just gotten lost, or was trapped somewhere. They searched all the parks. Backyards, junkyards, refrigerators, trunks. Old-fashioned refrigerators, back before suction seals, had a simple handle with a latch that opened when you pulled on it. It wasn’t a problem when the fridges were in use and filled with food. But by the 80s old broke-down refrigerators started filling up backyards and junkyards, and they became deathtraps for kids playing hide-and-seek. The only opened from the outside. I remember thinking Tommy Barker was a little old to have likely been playing hide-and-seek, but people checked everywhere anyway. They never found him.
That was about the first time we saw the Hidebehind. Ben said he thought he saw somebody following us, looked like, maybe, a kid. We’d just slowly huffed our way up a moderately steep hill, Farmingham is full of them, and when we paused for a breather at the top, Ben said he saw it down the hill, closer to the base. Yet when we turned to look there was nothing there. Ben said he’d just seen it duck behind a car. That wasn’t the sort of behavior of a random kid minding his own business. Yet the slope afforded us a view under the car’s carriage, and except for the four tires, there were no signs of any feet hiding behind the body. At first, we thought he was pulling our leg. When he insisted he wasn’t, we started to tease him a little. He must have been seeing things, on account of his poor vision and thick glasses. The fact that those glasses afforded him vision as good as or better than any of us wasn’t something we considered.
The next person to disappear was Amy Brooks. Fifth-grader. Next elementary school over. I remember it feeling like when you’re traveling down the freeway, and there’s a big thunderstorm way down the road, but it keeps getting closer, and closer. I don’t remember what she looked like. Her face wasn’t plastered everywhere like Tommy’s had been. She was mentioned on the regional news, out of Seattle, her and Tommy together. Two missing kids from the same town in a short amount of time. The implication was as obvious as it was depraved. They didn’t think the kids were getting lost anymore. They didn’t do very much searching of backyards. The narratives changed too. Teachers started talking a lot about stranger danger. Local TV channels started recycling old After School Specials and public service announcements about the subject.
I’m not sure who saw it next. I think it was Ben again. We took him seriously this time though. I think. The one I’m sure I remember was soon after, and that time it was India who first saw it. It’s still crystal clear in my memory, almost forty years later, because that was the time I first saw it too. We were riding through a four-way stop, an Idaho Stop before they called it that, when India slammed to a stop, locking up her coaster brakes and leaving a long black streak of rubber on a dry patch of pavement. We stopped quickly after and asked what the problem was. We could tell by her face she’d seen it. She was still looking at it.
“I see it,” she whispered, unnecessarily. We all followed her gaze. We were looking, I don’t know, ten seconds? Twenty? We believed everything she said, we just couldn’t see it.
“Where?” Ralph asked.
“Four blocks down,” she whispered. “On the left. See the red car? Kinda rusty?” There was indeed a big old Lincoln Continental, looking pretty ratty and worn. I focused on that, still seeing nothing. “Past that, just to its right. See the street light pole? It’s just behind that.”
We also saw the pole she was talking about. Metal. Aluminum, I’d have guessed. It had different color patches, like metallic flakeboard. Like it’d had been melted together out of scrap.
I could see that clearly even from that distance. I saw nothing behind it. I could see plenty of other things in the background, cars, houses, bushes, front lawns, beauty bark landscape.. There was no indication of anything behind that pole.
And then it moved. It had been right there where she said it had been, yet it had somehow perfectly blended into the landscape, a trick of perspective. We didn’t see it at all until it moved, and almost as fast it had disappeared behind that light pole. We only got a hint. Brown in color, about our height in size.
We screamed. Short little startled screams, the involuntary sort that just burst out of you. Then we turned and started to pedal like mad, thoroughly spooked. We made it to the intersection of the next block when it was Ralph who screeched to a halt and shouted, “Wait!”
We slowed down and stopped, perhaps not as eagerly as we’d done when India yelled. Ralph was looking back over his shoulder, looking at that metal pole. “Did anybody see it move again?’ he asked. We all shook our heads in the negative. Ralph didn’t notice, but of course, he didn’t really need an answer, of course we hadn’t been watching.
“If it didn’t move, then it’s still there!” Ralph explained the obvious. It took a second to sink in, despite the obvious. “C’mon!” he shouted, and to our surprise, before we could react, he turned and took off, straight down the road, straight to where that thing had been lurking.
We were incredulous, but something about his order made us all follow hot on his heels. He was a sort of natural leader. I thought it was total foolishness, but I wasn’t going to let him go alone. I think I got out, “Are you crazy?!”
The wind was blowing hard past our faces as we raced as fast as we could, it made it hard to hear. Ralph shouted his response. “If it’s hiding that means its afraid!” That seemed reasonable, if not totally accurate. Lions hide from their prey before they attack. Then again, they don’t wait around when the whole herd charges. Really, the pole was coming up so fast there wasn’t a whole lot of time to argue. “Just blast past and look!” Ralph added. “We’re too fast! It won’t catch us.”
Sure, I thought to myself. Except maybe Ben, who always lagged behind the rest of us in a race. The lion would get Ben if any of us.
We rushed past that pole and all turned our heads to look. “See!” Ralph shouted in triumph. There was simply nothing there. A metal streetlight pole and nothing more. We stopped pedaling yet still sped on. “Hang on,” Ralph said, and at the next intersection he took a fast looping curve that threatened to crash us all, but we managed and curved behind him. We all came to the pole again where we stopped to see up close that there was nothing there, despite what we had seen moments before.
“Maybe it bilocated,” Ben offered. We groaned. We were all thinking it, but I think we were dismissive because it wasn’t as cool a word as ‘teleport.”
“Maybe it just moved when we weren’t looking,” I offered. That hadn’t been long, but that didn’t mean anything if it moved fast. The four of us slowly looked up from the base of the pole to our immediate surroundings. There were bushes. A car in a carport covered by a tarpaulin. The carport itself. Garbage cans. Stumps. Of course the ever-present trees. Whatever it was it could have been hiding behind anything. Maybe it was. We looked. Maybe it would make itself seen. None of us wanted that. “OK, let’s get going,” Ralph said, and we did so.
I got home feeling pretty shaken that afternoon. I felt safe at home. Except for the front room, which had a big bay window looking out onto the street, and the people who lived across it. There were plenty of garbage cans and telephone poles and stumps that a small, fast thing might hide behind. No, I felt more comfortable in my bedroom. There was a window, but a great thick conical cypress tree grew right in front of it, reaching way up over the roof of the house. If anything, it offered ME a place to hide, and peer out onto the street to either side of the tree. It was protective, as good as any heavy blanket.

Over the past couple of years, I made friends with a small group of coworkers at my job. We decided it would be fun for us to hang out sometime outside of work. However, we can literally NEVER agree on a time and place to do so. The sequence usually goes something like this:
"Sorry, I'm busy after work today."
"Saturday is my boyfriend's birthday and I can't make it."
"I'm going out of town that weekend."
"I hate to cancel but turns out I have a dentist's appointment at that time."
"My hubby and I are celebrating our anniversary!"
"Sorry, but I'm actually moving that weekend."
"I need to check in with the babysitter first."
"I was planning on bingeing Bridgerton that night."
"I'm talking to my therapist that day. Sorry to be difficult!"
ETC. ETC. ETC.
I don't know why, but this phenomenon only seems to exist amongst people I know in their 20's and 30's. The impossibility of planning anything with anybody at any time. The plans that are made and then fall through after you've adjusted your schedule to fit the new plan. It's MADDENING.
Aziz Ansari has a bit where he explains that the reason these plans fall through is because thanks to the internet, we don't rely on and/or appreciate actual social contact anymore. Why do we need to catch up over coffee when we can just look at someone's Facebook page? Why do we need to chat when we are constantly texting and emailing at a mile per minute?
Maybe it's also the illusion of choice. With so many entertaining options at our fingertips, how do we know if we want to grab drinks with coworkers when we could possibly be going to the football game, or staying in and ordering a pizza, or doing virtual board games online or going to the dog park or just scrolling on Reddit for hours on end? HoW dO wE kNoW? The answer is we don't know and our attention spans are limited.
I have a third idea: in a social culture where flakiness is the norm, that just encourages us to be even more isolated and non-committal. If it takes seven tries to make plans with someone, do they really like you? Is it even worth it? To put yourself out there and try to be the one to corral the group is to risk more feelings of social rejection when you find out that someone would rather watch Is It Cake? on Netflix than hang out with you. So you hang back, but then everyone's hanging back tepidly and it becomes even flakier.

Wording and any possible replies will be purposefully vague because my tin foil hat is screwed on too tight today...
The backstory:
So like many, the pandemic caused my SO's company to go full WFH. While business was impacted to a certain extent, they were able to continue operations almost completely. Over the 3+ years, multiple "no raises, but be glad you still have jobs" (nearly verbatim) type e-mails have been sent out or line has been stated on all hands conf calls...
The company has been teasing return to office for the better part of a year and it finally happened last week in the form of a "hybrid" schedule with much corporate fanfare. Pretty much everyone has been grumbling about it for months - they've been successful from home, so why go back into the office? My theory: because someone decided to move the office (location makes business sense for at least one reason, but "asses in seats" isn't it) and needs to justify the decision to spend money on new office space that hasn't been used at all...
The location move has at minimum doubled the commute time from the old office (and exponentially increased it from just rolling out of bed)... I thought the cherry on top was the open floor plan that makes it so easy to collaborate with people that SO doesn't need to because they'll be busy on the phone doing their job, but I was wrong! This e-mail was sent out today noting that WFH full time is optionally available again, after just one week (3 full days) of hybrid/in office work. Taking something away and "giving it back" in this way seems so wrong.
Here is the e-mail in all it's glory:

​From: ​​[REDACTED] ​
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023​ ​[​TIME ​REDACTED] ​
Cc: ​​[REDACTED] ​
Subject: Work from Home Request
Hello ​[REDACTED] ​Client Services and Technology Loca​​l Teams:
By now you have settled into your new office spaces, and we hope you are enjoying the new atmosphere. The Company put a lot of time, energy, and money into creating a safe, fun, and engaging place for you to work and collaborate.
As you know, ​​[REDACTED]’s current return to work Hybrid Model requires you to be in the office just two days a week, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. We allow you the opportunity to work i​​n the office or remotely on Wednesdays, and work remotely on Mondays and Fridays.
We have spoken to some employees who enjoy coming to the office two days a week, while others have expressed an interest in working in the office less than two days a week and are willing to trade minor compensation for the flexibility to work remotely up to five days a week.
It is our goal to create a work environment that is both accommodating and productive, taking into consideration organizational needs. ​​[REDACTED] would like to grant teammates who work on the Client Services and Technology Local Teams (CSSs, CSAs, Programmers, QA, Implementation) the option to request a schedule that comprises less than the required two hybrid workdays per week in the office. Instead of the current eight days a month (2 times per week) in the office, we are offering a choice to work in the office either four days a month, two days a month, or fully remote. Under any election, you will be expected to attend in-person meetings in the office from time to time when determined necessary by your Supervisor.
If your request for the revised Work From Home program is approved, other than for medical or disability, then for the initial calendar year you will not receive a raise, and your current annual base compensation will be adjusted one time as follows: a) If you elect to work in the office 50% of the Hybrid Work in Office Days (four days a month), you will receive a one-time reduction in your current annual base compensation of 5%; b) If you elect to work in the office 25% of the Hybrid Work in Office Days (two days a month), you will receive a one-time reduction in your current annual base compensation of 7.5%; c) If you elect to work in the office 0% of the Hybrid Work in Office Days (fully remote), you will receive a one-time reduction in your current annual base compensation of 10%. The Work From Home Form will allow you to select which days/weeks you wish to work in the office based upon your election (unless fully remote).
To make such a request, please contact Human Resources to receive the Work From Home Form, which you must complete and submit to Human Resources by this Friday June 2, 2023, by 12:00 pm. Once completed, your request will be reviewed by your Supervisor, and then Human Resources will advise you of next steps.
We believe that in-person time together is important for a variety of reasons, including connection and moral, thus the Company’s investment in renovating the workplaces and purchasing new furniture. While we prefer that everyone has a presence in the office on the scheduled two hybrid workdays per week, at this time we are letting you make the decision based on your personal preference. It is our hope that by giving you the flexibility to decide the number of days to work in the office and remote that we will continue to create a successful working environment for everyone.
Thanks

​
Some notes that I have to the email:

• The wording of the entire email has "ultimatum" written all over it.
  • Sent on Wednesday, respond by Friday or fuck off.
  • "come to the office or we cut your pay" - "we're letting you decide based on your preference.
• They spelled "morale" wrong.
  • The cost incurred had a negative impact on morale. Double loss. Maybe they should have surveyed employees if that was one of their top concerns?
• "fun" workspace... Coming from someone who enjoys what they do - this is not a silicon valley or unicorn startup in their prime. There's nothing fun about this... They even removed the fabric covered boxes, but that's a negative here because open floor plans suck.
• After months of hearing people complain and going all in on RTO, a week later you decide to pump the breaks?
• While not explicitly noted here, other people attached to this office moved out of state and still work for the company 100% remote. Are they getting a 10% pay cut? Did they already get a pay cut? Almost certainly they moved to lower cost of living areas (we live in a high cost of living area), so did they get market decreases as part of the move?

Edit- i did not know that was fraud, as mentioned, someone told me to use the money for bills. I have not or did not use any money for bills. I intend to donate the rest to my kids sports team. *****
I 31f and my bf 33M signed our kids up for football and cheer. He has a son (8M) and i have 2 daughters (8F, 6F). We rushed into our relationship and moved in together. Thats when i found out he only picks his son up a few times a week to hang out and gives his sons mom $200 a week. I on the other hand do 50/50 with my girls dad. So I have my kids throught the week. My bf also works a minimum wage job, I have expressed that he needs to find a better paying job, he knows how to weld and is a super hard worker, but he doesnt want to because football is coming up and his current schedule works with when his son will have practice/games. I make double what he makes. This has caused me to cover a lot more than I should, but I also have more bills than he does. So some months are hard for me. For this reason I decided to fundraise for my daughter's uniforms. And Ive made over the cost of what I needed and I told him I would give his son a cut to help pay for his sons cleats, pads, etc. My issue is that he never brings his son around me. I have begged him to bring his son around, because I have 2 girls, and I would love having a boy around. I also just have a lot of love in my heart that I want to get to know him, love him and support him. I have also mentioned this to my bf that he should bring him over more and actually take care of him since we have a big house and a whole room for him, that way he didnt have to give his sons mother so much. And he could provide for him at our house. We got into a fight one weekend and he told me that, its his son, not mine and he doesnt want to get to know me. He doesnt invite me or bring him over because thats his time with him and he doesnt want to share. I still have money set to the side for his sons football needs, but everyone tells me that I should use the money to pay the bills since my bf barely gives me enough for his portion. I know that if I don't give him the money for his son, he will probably use money he should be giving me for bills. I have asked him to not give so much money a week to his sons monther but he refuses. Its not child support, its just what he wants to give. I just feel like an asshole not giving money for a childs needs.

Newport Beach, Fountain Valley, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Tustin, Garden Grove, or anyone living within a 30-mile radius of Costa Mesa California.
I'm checking to see if anyone plans on remodeling any time soon. To give everyone an idea of what we can help with we do.......kitchen -( cabinets and flooring and paint cabinets)-Flooring: Laminate, hardwood, glue-down, any type of tile flooring.-Full detail remodel the entire house. Meaning: paint, flooring, plumbing, electrical, as well as remodeling shower stalls. To schedule an in-person appointment for a free quote...let me know. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Thanks.

Hi there! I’m in an open marriage and I’m a Dad.
I am looking for a woman who is also in an open relationship or at least has some experience with that. I look to find someone to date and see long term in a secondary type relationship. I’m looking for emotional intimacy that feeds into physical intimacy. I’m poly in that I’m open to romantic feelings if they develop but I also am not trying to force anything. Just want someone to appreciate and feel connected to. Ideally, once we are established you enjoy texting when we can’t see each other in person and you’re available for meetups once a week-ish as schedules allow.
I’m 43, white, 6’1”, 190lbs. I workout and run regularly. I am kind of a cute nerd type in the face crossed with a surfer dude. I have jaw length ashy/brown/blonde hair (still have all of it and it’s wavy/curly and thick), blue eyes, clean shaven and I wear glasses. Personality wise I’m strong, quietly confident, laid back, sweet, and introverted.
I like nerdy stuff like board/video games and I also enjoy football (Niners!), hiking and occasionally going out to dance. I work as a lead software engineer in video games. I am a native of the Bay Area. I also enjoy weed so be friendly with it please. Generally open as well to limited use of party/psychedelic type drugs and enjoy experimenting with the right person (combine this with dancing?).
In the bedroom I have a natural, passionate and sensual way. I enjoy being the masculine one in general but I am not formally kinky or a dom type. I have a strong carnal desire, I’m sensually very intuitive and I enjoy causing pleasure. Also, I’ve had a vasectomy.
Attributes I like in a partner are short, sweet, sensual, genuine and down to earth.
A word about my relationship; we are open but not swingers. I look to find a purposeful connection with a like mind. I am not looking for something quickly or for the short term. The goal is certainly to find amazing physical chemistry, but with someone whom I know, care for and respect.
I live in San Jose and I am quite mobile and happy to drive almost anywhere within reason.
Thank you for reading this far and I hope to hear from you!

Had some success with this subreddit in the past on finding some great friends, so here I am trying again! Looking for people i can chat with consistently because life has been a bit difficult recently and it’s always nice to have someone to talk with about it.
As for me, I’m a pretty calm, introverted individual who enjoys getting to know people from all over, so time zones don’t bother me and my sleep schedule is all over the place anyways.
Some hobbies include: sports (baseball, basketball and football) tv/movies (MCU, Star Wars, LotR nerd but watch plenty of other content), I enjoy trivia and board games as well! Eventually i think it’d be cool to find someone to watch a show/movies with or play some games.
If any of this interests you, just send me a message introducing yourself!

Now that our first couple of football games have been scheduled, let's show these new recruits and transfers what it means to play on the plains.
Let's pack that stadium to capacity and welcome in our new coach, and new players.
Let's show them how BIG Auburn family is.