I feel this in my soul.

I use OdoBan on mine. I put a cup of it in the washing machine when I load my clothes in. It seems to help. For nasty odors, I’ll pretreat with it.

I’ve also had some luck with Cupridyne (which is marked up and sold here as Pooph!, if any of you have seen the infomercials). It’s great at getting rid of intractable odors, but it seems to take a LOT to make a noticeable difference.

I completely agree with this. Getting my ADHD under control with Dexedrine and Wellbutrin along with guanfacine to take the edge off of the irritability has been a life changer. I’m still very much AuDHD, but at a manageable level.

Working from home means no longer having to battle sensory sensitivity. I created and set up my own custom lighting setup (read: a couple of motor controllers and AliExpress LED strips). I normally work under very low lighting, but it’s trivial to adjust it when I have to be on camera. That’s rare because I luckily work on a team in which it’s socially acceptable not to have it on. At work, ADHD drives the flashes of insight and willingness to try ridiculous ideas; autism keeps track of the todo list and forces me to think about edge cases.

It’s the autism that drives me to clean up things that I spill and isolate and regularly get rid of trash, for example. It’s also why I am generally well prepared while traveling. I have dedicated cases for electronics, toiletries, cutlery and condiments, even bookmarks and writing utensils, and I always have a little cash, some of it in quarters, just in case I have to do laundry. Incidentally, those are some of the things that drive me batty about my boyfriend, who’s allistic and inattentive ADHD. But I know he can’t help it, plus he has to deal with my rigidity and hyperactivity.

Anyway…my analytical and hyperactive nature are what drive me to exercise regularly and to see it as a lifelong habit; given the vast body of data about its benefits and the dangers of being sedentary, it would be illogical if I didn’t do it.

The advice about not looking for love is good but incomplete. I think that some people (myself included) have to put some thoughtful effort into dating if they want a partner. For others, it comes more naturally for one or two simple reason(s): they have a wide social circle and/or they have lives that consistently put them in contact with a lot of other people. In a lot of ways, it truly is a numbers game.

Since I’m not one of those people, I took a systematic approach to dating and sought to replicate that network effect while still staying true to myself. I upgraded to the paid version of Scruff (I’m a gay man) after realizing that it was far easier for me to make friends than date where I was. The immediate goal was not to find a boyfriend, it was to practice chatting with men in a platonic manner. The secondary goal was to make a friend or two. I made a goal of chatting with 4-5 people each week.

In the meantime, I started delving more into my hobbies by taking classes and going to meetups because they exposed me to more people. Also, hobbies are a good source of conversational topics.

After 3-4 months of doing this, I received a message on Scruff at 2:00 one morning. My sleep schedule at that time was messed up, so I was actually awake then. I looked at his profile and saw that he was interested in maps (one of my special interests). So I responded and we just hit it off. If you’ve ever met someone and just clicked with them, you’ll understand what I mean by that. We became good friends within a month or two, then things got a little more serious. The downside was that he was literally on the other side of the continent and we both had careers that were dependent on our locations, so we agreed to keep things platonic. We met in person the following month and found that the attraction was still there, only stronger.

We’ve been together for over four years now and have lived together for 3.5 of them. He also has ADHD, which is probably part of why we get along so well. Perhaps I just got lucky, but if I hadn’t pushed myself to socialize with others (I consider text-based conversations to be a form of socializing), we would never have met.

tl;dr: The closest thing there is to a magic formula is to be kind, interesting, and interested in other people. And “interesting” means different things to everyone, but in my experience, hobbies and special interests tend to be a bit of an advantage. Also, a good first step is to widen your social circle (use your favorite search engine to learn more about the weak ties theory, if you want to nerd out about how that works…this is also a good start: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_ties).

Nevada is a beautiful state! I’ve had a blast every time I’ve visited, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I’m not into gambling. How do you like it?

It could always be worse, though I wouldn’t choose to live here if it weren’t for my boyfriend. As a kid, I used to dream of leaving the South for good. And I managed to pull it off by getting a job at a company in Silicon Valley just before the pandemic.

But dating in that part of the US is hard if you’re a techie who’s not a queer Communist poly furry, so I became open to long-distance dating. To be clear, my values and beliefs are radically leftist when compared to the value system that the government and religious authorities (basically the same thing in TN, lol) try to cram down kids’ throats. But I’ve endured enough brainwashing attempts to be extremely skeptical of any belief system that claims that it’s the one true way and all other beliefs/systems are <insert absolutist hyperbolic ways of saying “bad” here>.

I work with a trainer for the majority of my workouts, but he’s currently out of town. I’ve wanted to become more autonomous and I want to address the strength imbalance between my left and right sides, so I’ve been doing some of Onnit’s steel mace workouts. Several weeks ago, I started doing one day a week of mace work and have increased it to 2-3 while he’s out of town. Hopefully it’ll get me out of this plateau by the time he’s back.

I have an Assault fan bike. Its screen can’t be used to watch TV (if I want to do that, I put my iPad on top of the screen), but in my layman’s opinion it’s versatile enough for LISS and HIIT workouts. I used it to help rehab my elbow and shoulder last year and I use it for cardio on days that running outdoors isn’t a good idea. I’ve had a rower, but I could never get into rowing like I can with running.

I’m in Kentucky, but I’ve lived all over the US.

I don’t, but having known enough people of all ages who do, the concept has been a normal part of my life for nearly 20 years. But, to be honest, some of the more esoteric neopronouns sound cringey to my ears (but I’ll oblige out of respect) and I flat-out refuse to call anyone “it.”