I don’t like when people trash the OP in cases like this. Sometimes they are trolls or attention seekers, but at least at first, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. I appreciate you not crapping on him. He already has that covered, and more certainly isn’t going to fix him.

I only got out of my own mess because enough people were patient with me. If I can give some of that back, that’s just me passing some of that grace I was given forward.

Every day gives you another chance. It’s really freaking hard when you’re down in a hole like this. That’s why I said to check out that other post. Many of us have been in similar spots. We’re here to help, but we can’t give you answers cuz we aren’t you. You need to work every day to find what does work for you.

There’s no secret to being liked by women. It’s the same as being liked by anyone. You have to be someone likeable, not just fake likeable, and it starts with valuing yourself enough to lift yourself out of the mental place you are at. This is like anything else, you got to build from the bottom up with a strong foundation.

I don’t know your full story, but a skim through your posts makes it feel like you have some internal things you need to address, and I mean that in a helpful way.

You really sound like you would want to have a partner, but you seem to be chasing symptoms and not core issues.

I’d recommend reading some of today’s thread on overcoming incel-like behavior. I shared a bunch of my personal story on there in BodePlotHole’s reply, and reading that and some other comments in there might be of real value to you.

That’s about all the help any of these posts are going to get you, and most of it is not bad advice. There’s no quick-fix other than the stuff you’re already getting burnt out of trying. You’re going to have to put in real work and take yourself seriously if you want to get out of this hole you’re in and find a happier life.

Again, not here to lecture you, do what you want, but I think your solution is fixing you, not continuing to ignore things and smooth them over temporarily with prostitutes and substances.

The temporary block of sales of these heavily controlled firearms provoked a fierce backlash from industry groups and members of Congress. While sales of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns have proceeded untouched by the government shutdown, and background checks have proceeded as normal, lobbyists argued that the impediment to sales of silencers, pre-1986 machine guns and short-barreled rifles was a violation of Americans’ second amendment rights.

Regular firearm purchases have remained unaffected. The “problem” is that rich people’s toys were being held up. This is about the $200 permission slip you need from the gov to buy full auto or suppressors that was not being processed due to the shutdown. Suppressors are often more than the actual gun to put it on, and the cheapest full auto guns I saw on the first 2 sites that came up started at $10,000.

On 16 October, the firearm industry trade association, the NSSF, wrote to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, protesting that “a right delayed is a right denied”.

Just like for Virginia Giuffre, right? What a POS…

Third panel is karma for being a difficult birth.

I’d completely forgotten about the spray. I started with spray deodorants originally, but switched to sticks after getting tired of tasting the overspray.

After that I tried gels, but at least the early ones were always sticky feeling. Not sure if they got better as once I tried the basic green Degree, it had everything I’d wanted from an antiperspirant and thankfully they seemed to have never changed it in all this time.

I have almost exclusively used Degree Sport since it came out probably 20+ years ago. The sole variation has been sometimes I got the powder scent if the sport was sold out and I think I used 2 sample sticks of Old Spice for paid surveys.

The Degree just works, is dirt cheap, and has a texture that doesn’t feel funny. Don’t mess with success.

Aww so cute! It looks like it was its first Fourth of July, still small.

I’m right next to the park where they do the town fireworks and I always feel my terrible for the bats that seem to think it’s the end of the world.

The handful I’ve had to handle seemed very shy. For most, I’d be going to clean the juveniles’ cages, but after they saw me coming to pick them up, they’d usually climb the wall and I would just leave them there while I cleaned up and gave them food.

I had one run on me and be pretty feisty. It didn’t bite, but it did not want to be touched one bit.

We had a momma opossum have a surprise litter and since she was already in an outside pen, she got to raise the family there. They were all extremely pleasant and everyone loved them. Momma was a picky eater, but that was about it.

I’ve really enjoyed seeing how different individual animals’ personalities can be.

One of the last skunk babies we had sprayed someone 4 times before we figured out it was getting freaked out by the orange gloves. Any of the other gloves and it was fine.

I haven’t spent near as much hands on time with the oppossums as I had wanted, but the times I have had to grab them, they tend to act scary, but then not really do anything if their tough guy act didn’t get me to leave.

I’ve got tons of pics of them. I think they’re very adorable.

This is the last batch of joeys we incubated.

I grabbed this guy to move it to an outdoor enclosure.

This one is coming out after I dropped off breakfast.

It hasn’t been bad so far. The way I’m getting it is an interdermal shot instead of intermuscular, so it’s a shallow injection with a small needle. It feels like a bug bite, a minor skin bump, I didn’t have any itching, but it hurts really bad if I forget it’s there and scratch it by accident. The first injection is still visible, which I’ve never had from another shot, but otherwise I don’t feel it, so I’m thinking it’s not abnormal, but I’ll ask tomorrow.

I was extremely tired the next day, but I have been sleeping like crap all year and I had to drive 6 hours round trip, so it’s probably just that. The shots are very expensive, and the place I’m going is doing a clinic where we can use the same vial of vaccine for multiple people, so it’s saving us all a ton of money.

Even with all the gas money, I’m still saving at least $500 on the shots. Plus I stopped to see a pair of nice waterfalls and listened to a whole Discworld audiobook on trip one. Tomorrow I think I’ll hit up the state college’s store where they sell the ice cream they make in their special ice cream program and maybe hit up the wildlife rescue out there if the rain is light.

I always love to hear it. It makes my day better to talk to you guys about owls and misc other animals too.

Owl of the Year Qualifier starts sometime next month, so be sure to come play along!

Strictly not pets, but I’m getting my 2nd of 3 pre-exposure rabies vaccinations this weekend so I can work with skunks and the other rabies vector species (bats, coyotes, fox, groundhogs, raccoons) next spring!

While I haven’t been able to handle them, I have prepared their food. Out of all the baby animals formulas we have, skunk milk smells the best!

I joined up to work with the owls and other raptors, but all the animals we get are fascinating in their own ways.

It’s my pleasure. Every week I get new great stories to tell. Last week was my first time with a vulture, so I got to learn how they behave when a new human comes poking around them. I get to see animals up close that I didn’t even know we have in my state like minks, flying squirrels, and the other week we had a brown thrasher, which is kind of like a roadrunner.

I work with really amazing and caring people, meet all kinds of nice people and kids that find hurt animals and want to see them get better, some real weirdos as well.

We had a little boy find a bumble bee that was missing a wing and he took it to his parents, and then they brought it in and he dropped it off to us. We treated it the same as any other wild animal. We gave it fresh fruit, soft bedding, and while bee wings are too delicate to work on (we do repair butterflies though!) we gave that bee the best end of life care possible and we were sad when he passed. It may sound silly, but in a world with a lot of anger lately, to be in a group of people that can see love and compassion in a bee can feel like a really great place to be.

If you want more animal stories and cool anatomy stuff, it’s a bit more niche, but I post on !superbowl@lemmy.world every day. I post cute and humourous stuff of course, but much of the content is sourced from rescues like the one I work at or wildlife photographers, so there’s a serious and respectful undertone to it all, and I can answer lots of questions. I’ll sneak in non-owl related stuff from my personal animal care experiences too when I can tie it in.

It’s all good. Last week there were a lot in a bad mood since they were being weened. Their free ride is coming to an end. 😁

I thought you were talking about me at first! 😅

This guy was telling me earlier Jimmy Kimmel shoulda done more to stop the genocide in Gaza. 😄

They’re just a troll on every thread they post in, no matter the subject.

I’m a volunteer at a wild animal rescue. Squirrels have babies twice a year, and whichever ones end up displaced for one reason or another end up with us.

We’re starting to wrap up for the year, but at the peak of both breeding seasons we have over 200 baby squirrels in our care, and depending how big they are, we need to take care of them 3 or 4 times a day.

They get fed, weighed, a good general inspection to look for any health problems, and their enclosures cleaned out. We give them hammocks and toys and things to build up their squirrel behaviors.

They’ll eventually graduate to an outdoor enclosure with a lot more room to move around and/or we release them back to the environment where they resume their lives as nature intends.

As a larger and stronger than average person, squirrels are quite impressive little critters. They are extremely fast and agile, and you just can’t appreciate it until you start to handle ones that aren’t cooperative! They barely seem bound by the laws of physics. They can move any direction, in any orientation, stick tone everything with those tiny claws, have insane bursts of energy, and even ones with their eyes barely open have insane upper body strength to climb anywhere. When they are angry, they will hiss, spit, lunge and bite like the scariest of feral cats. They have sharp, reinforced teeth that can bite through our leather gloves if they really want to. They are no joke!

But they are also soft, loveable, and adorable critters that need a helping hand sometimes.

Here’s a recent photo I grabbed while feeding one. You can make out those biceps and cannonball shoulders under the fur, and this one is on the small side, so it’s a wimp compared to the big guys.

All us volunteers start our education on squirrels, as there are so many and they are pretty safe as far as wild animals go since they’re small and typically not too aggressive.

I’m looking to get vaccinated for rabies next month so that next year I can work with the foxes and raccoons and the rest of the rabies prone species. My main ambition is raptors, but we don’t get near as many of those as other animals, and they’re all amazing in their own ways, so I just want to be able to work with all of them.

I think that’s a good basic summary of everything. I’m far from an expert on any specific topic, but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. It’s a great job, and nearly anyone can do it if you have a few hours a week to do a shift (ours are 4 hours) and it’s an indescribably positive experience for the most part. I recommend it to anyone who loves wild animals.

A lot of them are cool. But when they are dicks, they go all out. They intimidate me more than a lot of the larger animals.

Squirrels are not typically considered a vector for rabies. They can have surprisingly bad attitudes and can do some damage to you though.

Source: I handled over 200 squirrels this month. 🐿️