Is it possible to just tell them it’s a medical appointment, but it’s about something that you don’t feel comfortable talking about?

It’s the truth, it explains the secrecy about the appointment, but it keeps the secret.

The trouble with “creepy” is that it’s emotive. Although it’s absolutely a correct word to use, it can easily be dismissed as an insult.

“Weird” is less of an insult, and can be taken objectively. I’ve got OCD, I know I’m weird - I’d be lying if I pretended otherwise.

But the thing is, Trump and Co don’t just want to be seen as “normal”, they want to be seen as the best at “normal”.

This is why “weird” works. It’s possible to argue that Trump being creepy is just someone else’s opinion, but it’s very hard to deny that he doesn’t do and say some weird things.

This is sticking because, even with the ludicrous amounts of good-faith his supporters have for him, it’s undeniably true, and possibly taps into any underlying misgivings they may have.

Weirdly, it’s the opposite for us - my grandad, my dad, me and my daughters even all went to the exact same tiny primary school (obviously over the span of 100 years!). We don’t move very far at all.

That said, my parents now live in France. Maybe it just kicks in later for our family.

Honestly, I think it’s just a matter of Games Workshop doing a Nokia - the company became successful focusing on creating good products then changed to focusing on making money. (Fun fact - a Nokia engineer actually created a prototype smartphone before LG or Apple, but the money guys felt sticking with the old super-profitable ones was the way to win).

The biggest advantage over 40k, from my perspective, is that Grimdark Future uses turns, I.e. ‘my unit, your unit’ instead of ‘my whole army, your whole army’. Each side moves each unit once per round, but you just take turns moving units getting there.

Grimdark Future Firefight is my favourite though - instead of huge battles, you take smaller teams. It feels more cinematic. Units don’t die as easily and you can pin a unit with suppressive fire. If you attack someone on the edge of a platform and knock them down, you can boot them over the edge. And best of all, it’s fast - games can be wrapped up in under an hour easily.

Oh, almost forgot - you don’t actually have to buy anything either. The standard version of the game, with army lists for all armies, is free. The army building app is free. You can buy advanced rules if you want more nitty gritty, but you’re literally good to go right now.

May I recommend trying Grimdark Future, in that case. Particularly Grimdark Future: Firefight.

The 40k lore is fantastic and tons of fun. Unfortunately the rules not so much. The rules of Grimdark Future, by contrast, are very clean and well balanced.

Fortunately, you can map the lore of 40k directly onto Grimdark Future (like I suspect most people do) and end up with the best of both worlds.

Another big advantage of Grimdark Future over 40k is that it is mini agnostic. If you want to use 40k minis, go for it. If you want to use 3rd Party minis, that’s fine too. Lego people, plastic soldiers, pebbles - all good.

By contrast, the official line for playing 40k in Games Workshop Stores and GW Tournaments is that the minis need to be GW, no 3rd Party minis allowed. (It didn’t used to be this way, and many store owners will be happy to turn a blind eye, but that’s the official stance).

If you are interested in this route, Wargames Atlantic do a superb line of very affordable minis that can be used - Death Fields.

Sorry, but they’re the rules of the game.

You’re right, there are many bits about the driving test that are suboptimal, but the aim here isn’t to be 100% optimal, it’s to make it clear to the examiner that you’re doing the checks.

That’s all it is.

I was a mess when I was younger, especially in these kinds of situations - it took me eight attempts to pass my driving test, and my instructor could never understand why I kept failing. As an adult, I’m much happier with there being different rules for variants of situations, but when I was younger it just felt wrong.

One of my many many food rules is that meat can’t remind me that it was part of an animal. If it does, then I just can’t eat it.

So, no bones, no skin, nothing in the same shape as an animal. Turkey dinosaurs are fine.

My wife has often said, with more than a grain of truth, that if she didn’t live with me I’d never eat or drink anything.

I rarely feel hungry or thirsty - it’s usually my stomach making noises that alerts me to the fact. Annoyingly, unless I have a dehydration headache, I generally can’t tell whether I’m hungry or actually thirsty.

I’ve literally just bought a Pixel 5 because it was the smallest high-spec phone I could afford.

Although this thread is a month too late for me, I’m glad to have found it - I honestly felt like I was the only person in the world who didn’t want a big phone.