oh god I was playing Pandemic with a dude who would mispronounce a city name, ask how it was actually pronounced, and then blithely go back to the first pronunciation as if we hadn't said anything aaaaaargh

Hey, thanks for the reply!

I'm a gay Brit living with my boyfriend in South Africa. We're far from the adoption stage yet, but in those light, maybe-one-day talks we've had about possible kids, he's been very keen on the idea of adopting a black child from one of the townships, and raising them with both ours and his heritage in mind. This would mean raising them with one foot in both cultures; ours, and that of their birth.

Which I'm conflicted about, really. On the one hand I've been to orphanages in the townships, and while they're filled with good people doing good things in desperate circumstances, they're not good places to grow up. I imagine this is true of most orphanages. Being able to share my level of privilege with a child who might not otherwise get even the barest of starts in life would be a pretty cool thing I think.

But on the other hand - racial identity politics in this country is insane. Speaking to my black friends, a lot struggle with the idea of being considered a coconut, not truly belonging to either the affluent white societies where they work or the black communities from which they've come. There's the "rescue baby" narrative, the gratitude narrative, the perception that we'd be doing it as an ego boost or to have a black baby as an accessory (which I'm sure we wouldn't be! But it does provoke some uncomfortable soul-searching). And coming from a diplomatic-brat childhood, I know what a mixed blessing being a Third Culture kid can be.

I guess what I'm saying is, thank you for giving me another angle to consider. It seems like the decision itself is simple - adoption is better than not adoption! But it's a mistake to think that it'd be as (comparatively) simple as just regular-ol' straight people babymaking I guess. I'm 100% certain that, if we do end up going through with it later in life, I'll be better informed for having read your story. Thanks!

This is my objection both to Wuthering Heights and most reality TV. Terrible people being terrible at one another is just tedious for me. I gotta be able to root for one of you sumbitches, or else what am I doing here?

*reads "It"
"Man this is an enjoyable horror book! It's a bit too long but still!"
*only main female character volunteers to have sex with all the dudes in order to... do... something
"The absolute fuck."

Relating so hard. At this point I feel like I have a wardrobe of acceptable personas that I throw on and wear for different situations. I do "generic white British man" best since I've spent the most time there, but that's not where I grew up - 15 years of living there and it feels like an effective disguise, but that's it. There's also "working class Welsh", "passably Belgian", "straight dude in precarious work situations", "empowered gay man" and, most recently, "charmingly befuddled fish-out-of-water Brit" in South Africa. My accent changes on a dime but it never quite finds what it's going for. People think I'm taking the piss.

I'd like nothing more than to find my own community of indeterminately-accented, slightly Americanised, internet reliant Third Culture kids so we can all hang out and be slightly off-kilter together

....OK, seriously reconsidering adoption now.

She's the Stockard Channing of miserable tambourine players in western art history.

I'm sorry but if you reschedule on anyone - twice! - you forfeit all right to ridicule that person.