I don’t gain weight, but I just can’t do it. When I was in high school my parents would always order me my own large pizza, and I would eat all of it except one slice, which I would eat cold the following morning.

Now, I’ll still have the appetite sometimes, and I’ll order a large. If I’m lucky and very determined, I’ll eat half, and then I’m so stuffed I feel sick. I suppose that’s a good thing, but there is a certain sense of accomplishment found in dusting a whole pizza yourself.

Dear Can’s Subconscious,

Sorry I haven’t written to you lately. I’ve been so busy, but that’s no excuse. I hope you are well.

I was writing to ask a question: y u no pee? U scare? Y?

Sincerely,

WoahWoah

While I’ve said no one is paying attention to you if you’re not peeing – and I think it’s largely true, I’ve never really noticed if someone doesn’t start peeing; I guess I would just assume they were stealth peeing against the side of the urinal – I have to admit I do notice those old guys that stand there for like five minutes leaking it out a spurt at a time. They seem to defy the 21 second rule.

I don’t think this is medical conditions. I think it’s just people shy about urinating. I just didn’t realize how common it was.

No worries, I think a lot of people thought I was being an ass instead of honestly just having never thought about it. I wonder if it has something to do with growing up in a big family and playing sports and stuff. Like, I think I just became to desensitized to it. If I needed privacy to pee, I would probably wouldn’t have peed through all of high school and college lol.

The amount of time I’ve dumped a whizzer while someone was right next to me, talking to me, or once while two other people were in a tiny bathroom at a party… at bars where there was no urinal and no door on the stall… that last one was a pretty notorious bathroom, because like I said, the stall had no door, but also the door to the bathroom itself was a pair of those swinging doors like in wild west movies. I’ll admit having to take a shit while you could still see the people at the bar was pretty awkward. One of my favorite dive bars. 🤣

Totally agree. Or maybe there could be a little fig leaf dispenser by the urinals so all the shy guys can hide their junk from god whilst they micturate.

Oh everyone’s looking, bro!

Got it. Well, I’m sure it doesn’t help, but I don’t think anyone notices if someone is or isn’t making pee noise. I think that’s kind of the point of the comic, i.e., that never happens because no one is timing your piss cycle (I hope!).

Yeah, I just didn’t realize it was so common. Sorry, that sucks. Are you an otherwise confident and secure person?

I’ve heard jokes about it, but I didn’t think it was a widespread thing. Doesn’t the need to pee outweigh the fear of… well. Whatever the fear is I guess? What exactly is the fear?

Yes, the extreme pressure of… using a public restroom. 🙄

Do people really struggle this much to urinate? It seems crazy to not be able perform a basic bodily function like this. I honestly had no idea. Though, I do question why one of these two isn’t following basic urinal etiquette. One stall between, otherwise use a toilet, otherwise wash your hands first and then, if no one has moved, you’re allowed to ride side saddle.

Some dude used a urinal right next to me with five urinals available, and I stared at him until I finished. He never looked at me. Come to think of it, I don’t know if he started peeing until I was done, but that seems like an edge case. His fault though.

Edit: wow, given the quick downvotes, it looks like it’s more common than I thought here on Lemmy, and it appears I touched a nerve! Lol

I’m going to start bringing a stopwatch into the bathroom and very obviously start it when someone sidles up to the urinal. 😆

For whom?

That’s kind of a “you” problem, no?

Everything is word salad if you struggle with basic literacy.

I’ll block you, that will make things easier for both of us.

Why are you so defensive about someone discussing the topic you yourself brought up? Was this thread only supposed to be vague platitudes?

Well, first, you didn’t ask a question. You made statements that seemed divorced from the geopolitical and military reality of the EU, so I offered some clarity. And no one thinks Trump will arm Russia? I think perhaps you forget how fond of Putin he and much of the party taking power in the US is.

No one said the EU will need to buy American arms. What I said is, if Trump decides to stop arming Ukraine and demands they end the war, and the EU decides to compensate Ukraine for what is no longer being provided by the United States, it’s quite possible Trump will withdraw the US from NATO. He’s already looking for an excuse.

If you think you can build a military coalition with 70% of the spend suddenly stopping, by all means. What is more likely, as I said, is the withdrawal of the US from NATO would dramatically hamper its effective strength as a deterrent in the region. You would then need to rely on individual member states to attempt to deter or defend from Russian aggression.

The US has a unified, centralized military with a clear and consolidated command structure across all of its branches with a military spending allocation 4x greater than the entire EU combined. The EU is a somewhat collaborative collection of nations with widely variant defense policies. Because of that, the EU channels the majority of its defense strategy through NATO, within which the US plays an irrefutably dominant role.

The idea that the EU could unilaterally “roll over” Russia if the US leaves NATO is unlikely, and extremely unlikely if it causes the US to start providing military support to Russia. That goes to my final point, which is, if you think you’re right, go ahead and try, and we’ll see how it goes. Fortunately, the leaders of the member countries in NATO are generally not as ignorant as you are, so the likely outcome here is if Trump stops helping Ukraine and tells them to end the war, then Ukraine will end up ceding territory and the war will “end.”

To be clear, none of these things happening are what I would consider good or positive possibilities. You may not like it, and I certainly don’t, but the idea that the EU will just “go it alone” flies in the face of the political and military reality of the United States and the EU. If you give Trump an excuse to exit NATO, he absolutely will, and the EU will then have serious challenges ahead. The economic impact of attempting to replace even half of the military power that will disappear if the US withdraws would dramatically reshape the EU economy. And not for the better. And that’s not even going into what China would do with the EU if this kind of political and military realignment occurred.

To be blunt, even as a union, the EU is not a superpower, especially militarily. Its member-states are, obviously, even less so. Its strength is generally in the arena of so-called “soft power.” What I’m discussing here is hard power.

The problem isn’t simply the US not sending arms to Ukraine and the the EU compensating for it. Do you really want to get into a military technology pissing match with the United States? Because the problem you have is if the Trump begins sending arms to Russia in response to the EU “prolonging the war” by making up for the US no longer arming Ukraine, you’re going to realize just how weak the NATO military alliance actually is.

Oh, but what about the US’s NATO obligations, you might say. Well, Trump has long wanted to leave NATO. Trump’s team has already pointed out that there is executive authority over foreign policy, and they will argue Trump therefore has the authority to unilaterally withdraw from NATO. And it’s quite possible he will, especially if NATO countries align to defy his attempt to end the war by increasing the arms they send to Ukraine.

It’s important to note that without the United States, NATO’s collective defense capability would be crippled. The U.S. accounts for 68% of total NATO defense spending, providing the backbone of the alliance’s military power, advanced technology, and rapid response capabilities. This dominance means that European allies, even collectively, cannot match the U.S. in terms of strategic lift, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, or modern weapons systems, all of which are critical to NATO operations.

U.S. withdrawal would leave a power vacuum that Europe is neither financially nor militarily equipped to fill, effectively gutting NATO’s ability to deter or respond to threats. Without the U.S., NATO as a credible military alliance would collapse under its own weight, leaving its members exposed and vulnerable to external aggressors. If the EU is worried about Russia continuing to expand its territory through force, the best way to make that happen would be to piss off the United States. Trump wouldn’t even need to do anything except leave. If he’s also arming Russia, say good night.

The EU is in no position to dictate terms or defy the will of the US in terms of military priorities. If you want to do that, than you need all member countries to dramatically reorganize their federal budgets to significantly amplify military spending. Very few if any EU countries a) have the political will to do this b) have the economy to afford this, and c) have the means to actually accomplish this. If Trump says the war is over, there is very little the EU can realistically do about it without making their situation dramatically worse.

Sad to say, this is truly a geo-political “fuck around and find out” situation for the EU.

You’re a world-class moron.

😆