You've just crossed over into...

Rhaedas

Don't mind us X-gen over in the corner. Sometimes it's better to not be part of the disaster anyway.

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I’ve allayed liked that the idea that if you say no to a suggestion in this situation, it is now your turn to suggest something.

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I've heard that the trick is to make it a guessing game.

We're going to eat out tonight, but it's a surprise. Guess!

Don't always go with the first option, keep it random between options

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Women in America (other countries too I’m sure) have been (and still are to some extent) treated like objects or property of a man. It’s barely been over 100 years (1910) since they finally earned their right to vote. It wasn’t until the 60s that no-fault divorce was allowed, as well as women being able to have their own bank accounts.

Even the Charleston Heston movie Soylent Green perpetuated the property stereotypes by calling all women in the movie “furniture”.

We’re still fighting some of these same battles today (no-fault divorce seems to be on the chopping block, and abortion is banned again).

So we “1st-world” Americans as a country still have a long way to go to bringing women (and other non-white male groups) to genuine equality.

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More or less. The man who appears in front of them is the narrator of "The Twilight Zone", who frequently appears to explain that the events of moments earlier are happening in an alternate, impossible, universe.

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Boomers are just at the (hopefully) tail end of a long tradition of bad marriages. No fault divorce has only been in the US since the mid 1970s, so a lot of boomer parents were kind of stuck with each other. Today, there's at least the possibility of parting amicably, before it all really turns to shit. The parents of boomers were a lot more likely to be coerced into early, or even arranged marriages by social and economic power structures. So boomers were brought up in environments where shitty marriages were common fodder for comedy.

By the time Gen-X & esp Millennials are born, women get a lot more autonomy, both parents frequently work and have active interests outside the home to temper home stresses, and it's much more common to break up bad marriages and try again.

It really is amazing how much better life can be if one is not locked into rigid social structures.

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Don't forget that being a divorcee was a bad tag to have hung upon you.

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Divorce was socially unacceptable, no matter the laws. That was a big deal.

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Guys, let me explain this weirdness. The woman usually expects you to lead, make the decision. You don't ask, you tell.

"I know! Let's go to $restaurant!"

Here's the part where you're expected to have a modicum of social skills, be able to tell if she likes the idea.

No? State another option. Don't ask, state.

"Nah! OK, we'll got to $restaurant."

Rinse and repeat.

Relationships require social skills, sorry guys, it's true.

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I feel like you can track this some in early TV shows. Way back when, you had shows like I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, featuring loving, largely functional families. Once this became an expected trope, shows like The Honeymooners and The Flintstones subverted that expectation, but became such a hit that they became the formula to emulate - so it became common to joke about marital strife.

Sometimes you'd get a show like The Addams Family, that would again subvert this new expectation; but they didn't start becoming the norm until much more recently.

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You’ve lost me. Why wouldn’t I ask my partner what she feels like? I’d asking questions not a part of social skills?

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Robot, experience this tragic irony for me.

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Did you do this from memory? I want you to have done this from memory. You will be as a god!

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Gen X is just slightly less ancient boomers with occasional tattoos tbh

zeet

Think you'll find 'Charleston Heston' was the dance number performed to, "Don't it Taste just like your Mammy's?", in the musical version of Soylent Green.

Lemminary

See, this is why I like my relationships 50-50. We both agree on something and each one pays their own food and we're back at the house bumping uglies. Done.

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Nah, you're just in a relationship with an immature person.

go $fsck yourself

Wife bad

catsarebadpeople

Wow! A real alpha male!

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I wanna marry your wife.