Isn't it funny tho, how R4R subs are kinda like a bunch of peacocks strutting about trying to be noticed?

Anyway, me: I'm 36, from the Glaswegian concrete jungle, turning into some kind of ageing hippy/technopunk hybrid (midlife crisis lets gooooo!). Hyper organised, punctual to a fault and an unstoppable writer of lists (thanks, Aspergers). Something of a quasi-religious person (as a man of science I can't quite swallow the idea of a god, but I can swallow the idea of why people create them). Absolute stickler for my ethics, authenticity and principles.

I've recently come to being poly, because I realised monogamy and my inherent rebellious nature didn't fit together. I'm not afraid of commitment or anything; I just can't function being tied down to one thing and one thing only. Life isn't like a box of chocolates, it's like a big glorious tapas spread.

I have a fancy lady friend currently, we've been together a few years. We both date separately and keep each other informed of anyone else we see (not that either of us has to grant permission, it's more an after the fact thing).

I imagine if and when I had more than one partner, I'd have to keep everything a 50/50 split; I don't see any other way for it to be fair. I can't imagine having a primary/secondary partner type distinction (I don't plan on marriage, if the law won't accept a poly marriage, because that would put one partner above another and that's not very nice). There should never be the idea that one partner is "better" than the other, to my thinking.

Now the difficult bit to define is what I would look for in someone else. Traits wise: compassion, non-judgemental (I have a bit of a past, I'm sad to say), inquisitive, dark sense of humour and a craving to understand why things are the way they are. The kind of person who believes you don't accept there are things you can't change, but instead change the things you can't accept; but also who knows their limits and that they can't change the whole world (much as it needs it). Someone who gets that subverting a system is better than revolution for effecting change... or at least can tax me on justifying that position I've taken (I will due on this hill, and to hell with the consequences).

Most of all, someone who can talk at length like I can (this post alone is sufficient evidence of what I mean by that). Someone who won't get bored with conversations about what exactly retrowave aesthetic is (and the notion of it's close cousin, NATOwave), the alternate futures that could've happened had the Amiga not been a flop, why Beethoven is the greatest musician to have live and obscure historical and pop culture lore.

Not that it's one-sided; I want to have someone infodump about their special interests and feelings about them too. Oh good lord someone please talk at me about their special interests, cos I am tired of feeling like a conversation hog doing it about mine. It's boring eventually always being the talker, you know? Makes me feel like a right selfish type, just can't help it (autistic turbo mode is hardwired in).

I am open to an online thing with a view to it being in person in some form later in the timeline. As long as you can keep up with the GMT timezone, I'm open to anyone. The notion it's not "real" because it's online is about 30 years out of date by this point.

I live and hope I am one of the Good People. It's hard to be alive in 2023 without the knowledge your quality of life is somehow screwing over someone else, but you try and do what you can to counteract it. Food poverty is something that really pisses me off, as is the war in Ukraine (go get 'em boys!). I try and listen before I speak. I try and help people if I can. I vote like a traditional middle class do-gooder, more for social democrat than outright far left policies. Feed the poor, maintain the welfare state, travel grants, all that sort of thing.

I find myself now stopping more often to think about the language I use and how it makes a point come across. Blah blah woke this and that, whatever you say old man, but it's true; words can be weapons and changing them to something nicer costs you nothing.

I spread myself wide across multiple pursuits in and out of work (I've done more or less every IT job from field services dogsbody, to developer, to management). I code, I doodle, I try to write things, I muck around on Youtube with retrowave edits, and otherwise can be found glued to some video game system or another.

Physically I would say on a good day I could be considered to have a bit of a John Lennon vibe. Not sure if that's a good thing, I don't want to bleed out on a New York sidewalk.

I like to think I'm a bit of an artist, but really I'm just an engineer with delusions of grandeur. I talk way too much, about pretty much everything a person could have an opinion on (whats the point of *not* having opinions?). Mostly what I make is, as a 00's kid, a "something but its crossed with something else" mashup trope. Creating actual things from the ground up is something I struggle with; I work better with patching together existing things.

Anyway, to finish off, here's a list of things by other people I like. If you message me consider this your conversation starter bank. I can guarantee delivery of an essay on the feels any of these give me.

❓ This and That: history and geography, digital multimedia (I still look at CG video like no way can we actually do this with a computer), retro computing (and my dearly cherished stack of Amiga 1200s), quality surreal memes, being obtuse and recording MP3s to tape just for the nostalgia, perfecting the ultimate lentil soup recipe, European culture and cuisine (going to Greece this year yeaaaaah boi!), the animal kingdom (where all the magpie lovers at?), military technology (and the paradox of being horrified by it's destructive potential at the same time), the railways (typical Brit), Iron Age mythos religions, basically anything cool being done with technology and engineering (engineering is just science with a work overall on, prove me wrong)

🎮 Games: Half-Life, Killzone, Resident Evil (but if it ain't in Raccoon, I ain't buyin - Resi 4 just gets a pass), Doom (2016 is better than Eternal, fight me), Mass Effect (so many manly tears), Ace Combat 7 (I still have no idea why I love this one so much), Final Fantasy VII, Tropico, Civ III, the Oddworld series, WipEout, Space Marine, Portal, Fallout, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic, Total War (OG Medieval or GTFO), GTA. I play on PC primarily.

📚 Authors: Terry Pratchett (Discworld is life), Iain M. Banks, Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash is entirely under-rated as Neuromancer's spiritual sequel), William Gibson, Stephen King (though only really the Dark Tower saga), Phillip K Dick (who tbh is often quite laborious to read, and tends to muck up his endings), Barrington J Bayley (campy 60s sci-fi hilarity), Dan Abnett (best British sci-fi talent), Gav Thorpe, Ray Bradbury. I read a ton of conflict memoirs and histories as well (ask me about my Falklands collection). I am a massive fan of 2000AD comics as well, especially the ones by the likes of Pat Mills and Gerry Finley-Day.

🎶 Music: Carpenter Brut, Apoptygma Berzerk, Green Day, Perturbator, Vitalic, Sol Invictus, Heimataerde, Kamelot, Stratovarius, Midnight Danger, The Offspring, Gamma Ray, Running Wild, Assemblage 23, VNV Nation, Nightstop, Kavinsky. I have a soft spot for piano pieces as well, especially those romantic left political tunes like A Las Barricadas.

🎥 Film: Terminator (the canon stops at #2, fight me), Aliens (you ever realise the film is actually about motherhood?), Demolition Man, Robocop, Star Wars, Goodbye Lenin (underrated German classic), Deadpool (my one concession to the Marvel craze), Enemy At The Gates, The Rock, Hardcore Henry (glorious nonsense), Grave Of The Fireflies, Children of Men, Mirrormask, Dredd (the 2012 one, natch), Shrek, Ace Ventura (the transphobic bit aside, shudder), some of the Resident Evils (#1 and #2 are solid, the rest less so), Major Payne (love the 90's gang of misfits trope), Addams Family, Street Fighter (yes, the one with Kylie, it's actually good, hear me out!)

📺 TV: Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Red Dwarf, Blackadder, Combatienties (what I could understand having to Google Translate the French subs of the Spanish audio, anyway), Danger 5, Shooting Stars (shitposting before it was a thing), anything involving Chris Morris or Armando Ianucci (Brass Eye et al), Alan Partridge, F Is For Family, Firefly, Poldark (epic lower upper class gigachad)

Take your pick, if you made it this far.