Definitely agree with your comments. The more you see the more you understand. The more you understand, the more you can control. Even if just a little bit.

I did a similar thing with food. It was tedious but interesting at first… then it just became tedious. However, by then I “understood “ enough, I didn’t have to actually do it anymore.

Thanks for sharing!!

Great advice!

I spent all of 2024 tracking my spending and saving. I didn’t “budget”, just had a spreadsheet and wrote everything down week over week.

I would recommend it as a habit people may benefit from just to understand where their money goes.

You assume the people I meet are living within a distance that makes it easy to “just get coffee”. If I meet them on a forum, Discord group, online gaming, etc., and not a dating website or app, they probably won’t be close to me. That doesn’t negate the possibility of a dating / romantic relationship.

Also, I personally wouldn’t meet someone without talking to them on the phone first (regardless of distance), so why wouldn’t I just video chat with them… FaceTime is just as easy as a phone call.

If you meet someone online and immediately want to meet them in person for coffee, good for you. However don’t act like someone else’s approach is wrong… because you don’t agree.

Assuming that a profile is enough to understand someone. Sure, don’t waste time/drag out meeting someone but… actually talk (video chat) and ask questions before you move things along.

Ask questions important to you and what you are looking for.

Very interesting indeed! Thank you for this information… I’ll do a little research on this.

Will do, that sounds really interesting!

This is also interesting, thank you! I will look into this!

I appreciate this… adding to the to do list for tomorrow. Thanks!!

Understood, I hope you get to identify the locations. I’m not sure I have the brain power to start something like that. If I do, or find a community, I’ll reach out and let you know.

Thank you for the advice. I’ll check it out!!

Is that what they call themselves… GeoGuessers? Did not know that was the terminology.

Will start a search for that, thank you so much!

Interesting! I will look into this a bit more… although I may not qualify. Looks like pay to play for gov and LEOS.

Still, I appreciate it.

Thank you so much! Will check it out.

Asking what the signs of getting older are?? 🙂

Random cruft… what else could I drop!! 🙂

You may also want to check some of the online Asian food stores / distributors. Sometimes you can find things like that. I know Boksu Market (not affiliated or promoting, just mentioning) has a lot of interesting snacks. Not sure they have exactly what you are looking for though.

fair, but I’d argue no one can go back in time with out any consequences. even OPs first bullet could have consequences through “meet the man and musicians”. did we not learn anything from Back To The Future 😀

I’d go back to “old enough to understand but still young enough to do something about it” me and have a nice long conversation 🙂