Yeah, this is weird. I've occasionally gotten street harassed, but I online dated for about two months and got maybe one strange message and it wasn't even sexual in nature. Even guys I turned down were very polite about it. I'm not sure how I avoided the typical gross messages. My roommate joined the same dating site, in the same city, and got tons of gross messages immediately. I think we're relatively equal in terms of physical attractiveness. I also moved to a larger city six months ago and I haven't gotten harassed here yet, but I frequently get approached for directions, so I can't be that intimidating?

YES and - have you seen Cutthroat Kitchen? Can we have a conversation about how they only cast people with fauxhawks?

Ugh yeeessss, someone who agrees with my ice cream theory.

The only time anything's been stolen from me it was when I was maybe 13, 14 years old. When my family was leaving my aunt's house after a weekend stay, I insisting on stopping at my favourite comic book store in the city before we drove home. My mom told me "make sure you hide your valuables" and I was like "whatever, mom" and did a very half-hearted job of concealing my iPod and Nintendo DS. We went to the comic book store, I bought the book I'd been specifically looking for, and we came back maybe 10 minutes later, tops, to a smashed passenger side window and my iPod and Nintendo DS gone. There was a group of drunk homeless men across the street from where we were parked who almost definitely either witnessed or perpetrated the theft. The cop who took our report spoke to them, but they insisted they saw nothing and that we probably "made it up" as we swept the glass shards off the sidewalk with a borrowed broom.

And oh god, the guilt. My parents had to pay to replace the glass because I didn't listen to my mom. They were very kind about it and not angry, especially since it was only my stuff that was taken anyways, but still, SO much guilt. My parents never had to punish me for anything as a teen because I always felt so guilty that I essentially punished myself. I'm still super paranoid about theft. I check my pockets constantly for my phone even though I live somewhere where pick-pocketing is very rare.

Personally, contact/smell isn't a problem for me, so people eating nuts around me is generally fine. But it definitely can be a problem for some people. I'm not going to begrudge people their protein, though!

I think nut allergies are perhaps taken a little more seriously than gluten allergies, because of the whole Wheat Belly thing and people trying to use not eating gluten as some kind of miracle cure-all, so I haven't had anyone treat me like I'm just being neurotic. Sorry if that happens to you! That really sucks. I do have a friend who once told me, "Oh yeah I really hate nuts, so I just say I'm allergic," which... um. Not cool.

I definitely get some people overreacting. I went on a trip with a scholarship group and I mentioned to the organizer than I had a nut allergy, and she contacted all of the restaurants we were going to to warn them, and then gave me the phone numbers of all the head chefs and was like, "You should call all of them just to be safe," (nooope) and then kept checking up on me whenever we were eating throughout the trip. It was definitely coming from a place of kindness, but it was really excessive - like, I've been dealing with this all my life, I can handle it myself.

This was all very helpful! Thank you very much.

Yes, I'm at the point where I feel like I can't really trust anyone and I have to take my diet entirely into my own hands. It's exhausting, but necessary. About five years ago when my allergy wasn't so bad it was okay, but no more.
The eat-in-the-dark place asked right away about the allergies - it's one of the fancier places I've ever eaten. Right now I'm at an income level where I'm mostly eating at the semi-fancy places with dirtbag teen servers... Good call on the laminate cards, wish I'd had that when I went to Italy.
I've never seen a beer with nuts in it, but that's something I'm super paranoid about, so thank you! Like, please don't describe your beer or coffee as having a "nutty" taste when there are no actual nuts involved, because you're giving me a panic attack for nothing.
Also, amaretto has peach pits?! I thought peach pits had cyanide in them. Trace amounts, but that's really weird. I mean, I guess alcohol is already technically a poison.

Thank you for all those tips! I'm sure they were hard earned.

Don't worry about it! Didn't feel like you were minimizing it. :) It is helpful to have confirmation that it'd usually just show up in salads. I'm already pretty wary of salads. Sauces/dressings are difficult to judge.

Yeah, it definitely seems too fancy to really be frying things in, but I'm paaaaranoid. I also had no idea that tree nut oils even existed until I saw that walnut oil. And you'd be surprised at the things that get left off the menu - looking at you, pesto. But yeah you're right; it just freaks me out that they even exist at all.

Gluten has become like the new allergy fad. When I was a kid, there was a lot of awareness about peanut allergies, so things with nuts in them were more clearly marked, but now gluten seems to have overtaken nuts. Now, I'll often go to a restaurant and the gluten-free dishes on the menu are marked, but no mention of nuts. Why can't we have both?? This weird allergy-du-jour thing doesn't help anyone with legitimate allergies.

Was the graphic novel "Are You My Mother?" by Alison Bechdel? That book had way more psychoanalysis in it than I was expecting.