Paradachshund

I think my only advice is don't be afraid to go with your gut when picking someone, even if it feels judgmental or irrational. This is one of the things in life where your own comfort is paramount as a starting point.

Feel more comfortable talking to a man, or to a woman? Go with that. Do you get a weird vibe you can't explain from someone? Go with that and look for someone else.

It's also OK to look for another one if you don't like the first one. Just make sure the reason isn't because they're making you confront difficult things. That's the whole point.

Good luck, and I hope you get some positive things from it. It's not easy, and it can be uncomfortable, but I personally have gotten a lot of clarity from it. Remember that only you can change you, though. All the therapist can do is reveal your patterns to you and give you coping strategies.

I'm not sure but I will say it's nice how often the top comments are pretty reasonable on here.

Exactly. Read the room in other words!

I think down voting things you disagree with or want to discourage is a perfectly valid way to use them, and better in most cases than responding and further escalating a shit fight.

If something you post gets heavily downvoted, that's information. You now know that your opinion is unpopular in that community. If you get down voted frequently and it really bothers you, it might be time to do some introspection on what you think or how you present yourself. Not all opinions are created equal, and you're not entitled to people's attention.

I can appreciate the opinion that discussion would be better, but I don't think it's realistic. Many times bad takes are coming from people who have no intention of listening, and just want to spew hate or argue. Down voting and moving on is a much better use of people's time than arguing with these people. If for no other reason than preserving one's mental health. It sends a message without feeding the trolls in other words.

As for how I use them? Funny/uplifting/valuable posts = upvote Don't get it/not interesting to me = nothing Shit take/spam/obnoxious person/wrong community = downvote

I believe the important part is to make people scroll, not just the number of words. For some unholy reason google considers that a better website.

That's also why some sites have a "go to recipe" button at the top now, which auto scrolls you to the recipe. They don't care that you read the text, only that you scrolled a lot.

It really caught me off guard. I had another search later today after I posted this that only had one Ad at the top, so it seems like it depends on the search term. I'm not thrilled this is even possible though 😒

This was the worst time I've seen. Here's a screenshot. The search term was benaroya hall if you want to try yourself.