#my main takeaway from the train of thought had been that i didn't know enough about all the different branches to be trying to guess his age

[pondscummy]

okay less venting and more soliciting actual feedback here about whether my opinions are too wild for me being a lef//tist, which is not something I ever want to do in a setting where randos are basically guaranteed to see it lmfao

I was telling my friend about a new crush I have on a different work guy than the first and I was trying to guess his age by the fact that I know he was dep//loyed into active milit//ary duty at some point after starting at our company, which makes him likely to have been within about ages 24-30 when it happened, bc the mili//tary owns you for 8 years after you enlist and can call you back whenever it wants. it's also very common that they pull from either the nat//ional guard or the voluntary res//erves, as opposed to like the standard branches who aren't currently serving.

anyway my friend told me that to them being in the mili//tary is just as bad as everything going on with my other coworker (who I could Never date fr bc his poli//tical opinions are so different from my own) and I was like really????????? bc like idk Yeah if he's in the voluntary re//serves that's bad to me bc it means he did his time and then was like yep I believe in this enough to keep doing it whenever you want me to past the time you own me even. I'd get major ick from that. but *i* almost enlis//ted in the nat//ional guard 😭 I was like 19 and stupid and had been raised by more con//serva//tive leaning parents and I just sort of saw it as a way to pay for school without really having to do anything too bad. I would've been very wrong bc they sent that branch to fight in afg//hani//stan and also used them in the por//tland prot//ests. but that was my thinking. and by the time I'd actually enl//isted if I'd done so I would've been 20 and they would have been able to call me back until last year, when my feelings were Very different than they'd been when I was barely not a teenager anymore

so idk in my mind, being or having been mi//litary is not an all a strike against someone who's had several years to change, it just makes me look a little closer to see if they have or if they are for a bunch of shit I'm against. but is that like super wild that I feel that neutral like is that something I should be re-examining???? idk

#my main takeaway from the train of thought had been that i didn't know enough about all the different branches to be trying to guess his age #lol. the range wound up being the entirety of his thirties and i was like well that helps me not at all bc that's already what i figured #pond.txt