That tallness modifier is more real for me than I ever realized growing up. Wish I had made better us of that earlier in life. The 4-eyes bonus helped my INT too.

Rated by me:

• Strength 10 (Garmin says I’m a champ ;-)
• Dexterity 15
• Constitution 9
• Intelligence 20
• Wisdom 15
• Charisma 5

How I expect my friends would rate me:

• Strength 15 because I’m a man
• Dexterity 15 because I have long arms and legs and I’m thin (but not super athletic)
• Constitution 20 (im so damn tired and people overestimate how much more I can carry)
• Intelligence 20 (four eyes and fit the stereotype)
• Wisdom 5 (I joke a lot which hides my wise takes which often require emotional energy that I don’t like to expend
• Charisma 15 (I don’t feel charismatic, but people keep annoyingly pointing at hard evidence that shows that I’m doing much better than I think)

I’ve been working really hard the last few years to put new points into Charisma, and I’ve been building constitution and strength through long brutal bike rides with massive hills regardless of weather.

I have an oil filled space heater that doesn’t work. It just runaway heats, trips the breaker, and tries to melt the outlet. The scrapyard will pay me maybe 50¢ for the metal, but I have to drain the oil and then I have to figure out how to properly dispose of that. I’ve thought about donating it to the side of the highway, but I can’t do something like that so it just lives in my living room, unplugged, broken, space-consuming, and ugly.

All that is to say sometimes people don’t know how to dispose of items correctly, especially if they’re foreigners from a country that sorts differently or not at all.

Back 10-15 years ago a friend tricked me into trying social dancing (think swing, salsa, tango, etc.) by telling me we were going bowling. They drove so I could not escape. Turns out I like it and since it’s not partnered a lot of people come alone and if you can summon up basic courtesy and respect, many of them will dance with you if you just ask. Different dances have different vibes. Swing is wholesome and a bit retro-nerdy, salsa is more flirty and extroverted, tango is intense and deeply technical. I made thousands of IRL acquaintances and dozens of friends doing this over the years. I never went or continued doing it because of the people, but they sure made it worth going. I never saw myself doing or liking this until I tried it. Now I can’t imagine my life without and I seek it out in every city I travel to. I imagine other hobbies could be similar. You can find group bike rides for various skill levels. Maybe your area has a nature hike club or a mycological society (people who study mushrooms). Poetry slams can be surprisingly cool too. None of this is advertised well, but a great place to look is in the back of an alternative newspaper that covers music and art and stuff like that. Like the back back, just before the weed and escort ads.

I would be signing all my communications cryptographically and sharing a key in person so people can validate whether a message not delivered face to face is really from me.