Discord is OK for real-time chat or VC, but is awful for forum-like discussions. Comment-specific context is lost in the single-threaded noise and search is borderline useless. The true forum-designed format of Lemmy, Reddit, and predecessors is far and away better. In my opinion Twitter - the legacy, ubiquity and tech - would be a better forum than Discord. That was hard to type and I need to quickly bleach my fingers.

I’m going to suggest possibly irresponsible advice, but step 1 - you need to solve your depression and porn addiction, and ASAP. For that you could try therapy, and/or psilocybin or DMT… Not a heroic dose, but enough to get introspective from an altered POV. Therapy is the obvious long-term recommendation, but the psychedelic route may get you there faster, and you might learn a few things, such as your social obstructions or root causes.

Second, you need a close friend, at least one, preferably one who is also your desired romantic demographic. Maybe not someone who you’d normally “go for”, but who you’d be happy spending time with - platonically, romantically, whatever it does not matter. The goal is to ground yourself with empathy for that person, and they for you too.

If this was Reddit I’d give an award or whatever they push now. Amazing, thank you.

Would you be willing to provide more info regarding the sect you’re referencing, for instance the name? I have a fascination with “original” gnostic/apocryphal beliefs, but this one is extremely intriguing & I want to learn more.

It’s back up now. They apparently use Bing as the backend search and Microsoft fsck’d it for a few hours: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163094/microsoft-bing-search-outage-copilot-duckduckgo-chatgpt

BTW the adapter I use is Apple-branded but still has the same volume issue reported for generic variants - it must be a limitation of the USB-C spec. I will concede that wireless is nice for workouts, though… I use my wife’s when I am in a rare music-while-exercising mood. She’s gone through 4 pairs in the past 5 years, though, and the amount of E-waste is very problematic.

If they made nice wireless headphones where the battery lasted longer than 5 years, wasn’t at risk in a hot car or backpack, and was also reasonably priced I’d concede they’re better. Until then theyre not a better solution (unless during workouts) and contributes to e-waste. The adapter is apple-branded too… I guess something about the usb-c spec doesn’t allow loud audio signals to pass through.

My parents aren’t even old enough to be boomers. I’m just practical.

I don’t use headphones often, but when I do its’ via wired headphones. I had to buy a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter, but the max volume is half of what my old phone with a 3.5mm jack could deliver.

Cheap wireless devices like headphones are way too finicky and prone to breakage, not to mention the battery lifespan is just a few years. I’ve had my nice wired headphones for 10 years.