@Bozza almost happened to me when I visited Amsterdam in the 90s. Was wandering the Red Light District late at night and went over to see what was attracting a curious crowd to the doors of a club. Worked my way forward then strained on my tiptoes to see over people.

A guy next to me said to nobody in particular, "A lot of women in there..." Far less streetwise back then, I took the bait and strained harder to peer forward. Slowly (having also partaken generously of the offerings of the plentiful "coffeehouses ") I thought, now why would this stranger say that?

So I whirled around to find his companion reaching for the zipper on my fanny pack.

Dude backed off with hands raised and an overly big disarming smile. So I called him out as a Gypsy lowlife who does not go well.

On this or another late night of Red Light District, I watched drama unfold wherein another member of our group caved in to his wife's unreasonable demands to their mutual serious detriment.

We were all ready to call it a night and make our way to the fleabag hotel we were staying in. His wife had gotten increasingly bitchy and whiny and demanding as the night wore on. Spotting a taxi stand. She INSISTED they take a ride back to the hotel despite it being only a few more blocks away. He wearily went along with it, clearly finding her shutting the fuck up by whatever means a premium value proposition.

So, they got in the back seat on each side and closed the doors. After like 12 seconds, His door sprang back open and he jumped out like he had been tased, and she slowly emerged from the other side. Apparently a crazy high number of Guilders got quoted for the short jaunt.

Strangely, the taxi lurched forward, stopped, then sped off, losing his prime position at the front of a slow queue.

We walked back and parted ways at their nicer, much pricier place she had snottily insisted on (unashamedly in front of everyone) after the first night.

Next morning when we all rendezvoused, it turned out they had left their backpacks in the taxi. Wallets, passports, credit cards, EVERYTHING lost! Took them days to make the rounds of all the places needed to get things sorted, while the rest of us did cool tourist stuff.

My GF revealed some true colors on this trip, but I was able to at least ditch her too many months later. Our long suffering buddy, however, was married to her and they had 4 kids.

Trusty old laptop finally cacked, so I'm setting up a replacement with a fresh Windows install for the firs t time this decade.

GOD DAMN, I can't believe how hard the Microsoft and Google plantations work to keep you locked in!!!

• Just the initial setup of Windows DEMANDS that you use a microsoft account; I had to use my phone to look up how to bypass this

• SO many apps that "phone home" to keep big tech prying eyes on you auto-install, which you then have to manually hunt down and uninstall

• FML, the act of just trying to watch videos on Youtube using the MS Edge browser, is positively maddening! The ads are SO FUCKING RETARDED and obnoxious. To someone not exposed to them constantly for years, it's very obvious how they've evolved to try to catch and maintain the attention of the latest generation of users who are jaded from the constant barrage. SO many times, I shout, "What the FUCK was THAT???"

• Trying to download alternate browsers meets with deliberate system blockading. Both Firefox and LibreWolf downloaded glacially slowly, with the latter download obviously throttled to show a time of DAYS before download completes.

• After a couple of failed tries, got the firefox installer to load. Attempting to run it, what should take minutes plods along slowly before eventually just stopping dead. I'm on like the sixth run attempt. After well over an hour, the progress bar is sitting at around 20%.

*Librewolf download failed numerous times, and had to get manually restarted repeatedly. I FINALLY got it to complete, only for the system to refuse to open it. It gives a message that "[File] is not commonly downloaded so make sure you trust it before opening." Only to not give any option to open it, just a fake "keep" option that does nothing. Probably have to run it from File Explorer, not the downloads tab of Edge.

• Trying to log in to websites like Yahoo Mail and Youtube, I find they all developed amnesia of the passwords I know damn well I used, necessitating "account recovery" procedures that freshly tie the account to my email and cell phone number.

They are pushing me SO SO HARD to say FUCK ALL THIS and finally make the leap to Linux!!

@lmhaaaydi

Need help setting up a date. I have no idea where to go. I'm 16 yo, just discovered TRP, and want to know where to take this hot girl I just met. I know she likes me, all I need now is a date idea, any help?

Consider investing into a reliable ready reference you can pick up and study to better prepare yourself for engaging the opposite sex. I'd suggest that you get yourself a copy of Doc Love's "The System: The Dating Dictionary". Doc Love, who until his passing was also known as Tom Hodges, wrote a weekly advice column that's archive is mirrored on several mens focused sites and a podcast. His media is a bit pricey, but it's a solid foundation a guy can branch out from in RP aware circles. I'd suggest you review his advice column to decide if his view on dating and relationships is aligned with what you aspire for yourself. To save yourself a search, give this scribed link a gander to find out if his book is something you'd like to add to your library. It should also be available on libgen.