Forget IQ for a moment, for all the good reasons that other people have given you.

One of you will know more than the other or learn more easily than the other. That’s unavoidable. Even if the gap seems small, there might be key moments where the gap causes conflict. This is going to happen, whether it’s you or them who “is ahead”.

The question is this: how do you handle it?

If you treat each other with contempt, that’s a problem. That could be you assuming that they are always going to look down or you or them assuming that you’re not trying to “be better”. There are many ways for this kind do contempt to show itself in your relationship. Each of you has the responsibility to not think that way. Each of you has the responsibility for accepting and loving the other.

If you can’t learn to do that, then your relationship is doomed to fail. If you can learn to do that, then you stand a chance.

You both can choose.

Some things about my partner used to irritate me and I learned to accept them for the things they’ve tried to change but just can’t. That acceptance is key.

Good luck and peace.

Our naming convention was comic strip characters, hence Hobbes, Casper, and Quincy.

The second vowel is an unstressed “i”. In most varieties of English, since it is unstressed, we pronounce it as a schwa, which sounds roughly like “uh”.

If you’d like to articulate that syllable, like you might do in French, then pronounce it like the “i” in “sit”. That’s completely optional.

Yes, I’ve heard. And even when they were quite punctual, a difference of one minute was very noticeable and reliably commented on.

Germany has entered the chat.

You seem to be ready for either mindfulness meditation or Stoic philosophy. Neither one provides a quick fix, but the benefits accumulate over time.

I’m sorry that you’re going through this. I wish you peace.

False syllogism (you speak Chinese, so you’re an asshole) or maybe premature generalization (some Chinese speakers are assholes, therefore all Chinese speakers are assholes).

There is an implicit binary choice here, so “whether” fits. Both work, although I, for one, prefer to use “whether” for binary choices and “if” when there are more options. This is similar to my preference for “between” only for two things and “among” for more than two.

The phrase “I’m wondering if… can…” needs a noun or pronoun between “if” and “can”. As soon as you try to remove that (by moving it out to “The monkey who…”), the phrase stops being grammatical. We’d understand you, but it would require significant effort to parse the sentence. That seems to be what makes this sound strange, no matter what we try to do with it.

I don’t know whether other languages can do this, but English can’t.

Cunkroll!

• Omnibus
• Darknet Diaries

Your last paragraph contains the clue. What message do you genuinely believe your brother will understand from you refusing to attend his wedding? Will it do any good? Does it seem likely to change anyone’s behavior?

If yes, then don’t go. If no, then put that thought aside and reconsider whether you actually want to go, then decide based on that.

Would you enjoy it even if he didn’t care? Would you enjoy it even if he leaned against it?

If yes, why?

Perhaps trying to answer these questions would help you clarify your feeling about it.

I found that text difficult to parse, due to a relative lack of punctuation. This means that I spent my energy trying to parse the sentences and my brain struggled to engage with the meaning and significance of the text. Maybe if I tried reading it again a few more times, I’d find it easier to follow and therefore easier to understand.

Maybe it’s just as well that I never tried to read any Joyce. Or maybe if I’d tried, then I’d be better prepared for this. 🤷

Forget “affirmative voice” for a moment, since that seems to be tripping others up as well as you. Prompt Engineering suggest sounding like the LLM, asking questions with “the same voice” as the one the LLM uses to respond. Perhaps PE needs to clarify this with some examples, because calling it “affirmative voice” hasn’t seemed to make it clear enough.

I suggest asking them, then perhaps sharing what you learn for the benefit of other folks who are similarly confused.

The only interpretation that comes to my mind is avoiding “not” and “don’t”. Ask for what you want instead of what you don’t want. 🤷 That’s just a guess.

I’m enjoying being told about these counterexamples, as I’m seeing even more clearly how this attitude is embedded in our shared culture.

So far, all the specific contexts people have mentioned to me in which men are being told to smile is one in which others feel entitled to the man attempting to impress them. In contexts such as dating or performing on video or working in retail, this doesn’t particularly surprise me.

I suppose another reasonable context is one in which the people asking you to smile are genuinely worried about your emotional state and want you to seem happier. By chance is it typically like that for you? (Let’s set aside for now the complex matter of whether they actually want you to feel better or they merely want to control your behavior or feel less uncomfortable themselves.)

How interesting! That makes it even less surprising.

That’s one exception that doesn’t surprise me. Do you have any sense of how often they are doing this with intentional irony compared to with genuine obliviousness?

Tell us a story of the last time you witnessed someone telling a man to smile because he would look so much better if he did.

I can’t, either. That’s why.

Think of the people who seem to do this to you. Pick the one who trust the most. Now ask them.