Off Topic Thread June 3 and before

[Mavica]

On 5/27/2023 at 5:19 PM, paborn said:

I have never understood why anyone who go anywhere that they could not appreciate the culture, language and people.

I agree.  However, read any of the popularly-read travel forums and you will see/witness comments from tourists who aren't really interested in local / national culture, attempting to speak even a few words of the national language.  It's taking Uber everywhere, eating in trendy restaurants favored by foreigners, visiting only the one, two or three popular attractions, etc.  I just returned from 10-days in Mexico and that's what I witness.  Perish the thought visitors would mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals.  Too many people want to check-off a destination from their list, and move-on.

[Latbear4blk]

6 hours ago, Mavica said:

I agree.  However, read any of the popularly-read travel forums and you will see/witness comments from tourists who aren't really interested in local / national culture, attempting to speak even a few words of the national language.  It's taking Uber everywhere, eating in trendy restaurants favored by foreigners, visiting only the one, two or three popular attractions, etc.  I just returned from 10-days in Mexico and that's what I witness.  Perish the thought visitors would mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals.  Too many people want to check-off a destination from their list, and move-on.

I would add a few more activities these "travelers" enjoy: putting other cultures down from the perceived superiority of their own culture, judging other peoples from the expectations of their own, and bragging from their ignorant prepotency.

[Riobard]

8 hours ago, Mavica said:

I agree.  However, read any of the popularly-read travel forums and you will see/witness comments from tourists who aren't really interested in local / national culture, attempting to speak even a few words of the national language.  It's taking Uber everywhere, eating in trendy restaurants favored by foreigners, visiting only the one, two or three popular attractions, etc.  I just returned from 10-days in Mexico and that's what I witness.  Perish the thought visitors would mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals.  Too many people want to check-off a destination from their list, and move-on.

Popular travel forums are basically social media extensions of travel guides. Both are generally geared to Coles Notes reductive summaries of the draw of a destination and key features that the average affluent visitor would appreciate. So what? Perhaps the majority of travellers that don’t live up to your expectations make visiting sustainable for everybody. Look at tourism contribution to GDP and perhaps you will notice that countries aiming to thrive are the ones orchestrating the content of go-to sources of travel information. The way that material is constructed and accessed, how travellers trying to get a break from busy lives are oriented and steered, may be what is deficient, as opposed to the assumed inferiority you have a hair-trigger tendency to wag a finger at. 

What else are you going to perceive if you position yourself as more skilled, adventurous, and appreciative regarding travel yet buy up the library of materials that you interpret as underscoring that you travel the most competently? 

If all you witness during a trip is evidence that you are the better visitor for a location, where are you hanging out? Why are you journaling the proliferation of trendy eateries and counting up the quantity of ride platforms uses taken up by visitors? If you’re not yourself at a Sandals after wheels down but you are the culture vulture transcending how others enjoy a trip how would you be seeing the manifestations of the very short-sighted approaches to travel you criticize. Where prepotency applies here is the pressing need to cast oneself as “better than” and viewing self in relation to “other”. Give it a rest. Goes for joiner cronies too. 

I have often stayed with local families in Brazil. I also crash at Renaissance at times. This simply makes me a traveler of a generation not the traveller of a generation. I would that the snobbery regarding travel playbook expertise here be toned down.

This topic was initiated by a board member in the interests of sharing what you would never find in conventional travel guidance. And geared to an audience whose travel agenda is very specific and subject to stigmatization based on enduring a neo-conservative societal context. I frankly don’t understand how it got flipped into a tirade launched by self-congratulatory know-it-alls. However, I’m happy to jump in where pathological splitting was unnecessarily launched. 

In contrast to hijacking my mentor’s thread, who was to stop them from entering a new topic titled Make Aggrandizing Great as Always, or How I Look Down My Nose at My Fellow Overprivileged Peers. 

Cue the lazy silly downvote, way past its shelf life merit.

[Riobard]

2 hours ago, Latbear4blk said:

putting other cultures down from the perceived superiority of their own culture, judging other peoples from the expectations of their own, and bragging from their ignorant prepotency.

Word. Thank goodness there are prolific contributors like you that report travel experiences as things that occur due to simple openness to what comes. You can write an interesting and entertaining piece and still walk through an entrance without getting a swollen head stuck. (Yeah I just realized … teehee.)

There’s no emoji for “this guy’s a safe space and I would give him the time of day” but I would plunk it here as well as for the aforementioned superhero. 

I noticed that perhaps you didn’t fully grasp an earlier post. It was intentionally aimed at a menace that definitely did get it. It would have required a being-there component and some historical tracking of forum content; otherwise might come across as serving Twilight Zone-level narrative. I don’t need to pull anybody in to the specifics, and my personal life resources competently cover off processing, but open to inquiries via DM. The guiding principle would be that some truths are stranger than fiction and there’s a lesson in it. As a fellow person from outside the national majority you might get a kick out of it. I’m open to Friendlies regarding sharing experiences; Belligerents unwelcome. 

[SolaceSoul]

3 hours ago, Riobard said:

I noticed that perhaps you didn’t fully grasp an earlier post. It was intentionally aimed at a menace that definitely did get it. It would have required a being-there component and some historical tracking of forum content; otherwise might come across as serving Twilight Zone-level narrative. I don’t need to pull anybody in to the specifics, and my personal life resources competently cover off processing, but open to inquiries via DM. The guiding principle would be that some truths are stranger than fiction and there’s a lesson in it. As a fellow person from outside the national majority you might get a kick out of it. I’m open to Friendlies regarding sharing experiences; Belligerents unwelcome. 

Oh, by all means. Do share what you think you know with the class. And I’ll be more than happy to share, publicly or privately, what several other very respected posters, young and old, have informed me about your batshit crazy, disturbing, socially inappropriate stalkerish behaviors with them. 

There’s very good reason why people avoid you. You really think that I randomly plucked you out of thin air to pick message board fights with you? Nope. I have literally been warned about you, and was given your name and photo, and told, “it’s best to avoid this guy if you see him, because he doesn’t understand social boundaries and it’s creepy.” Not MY words. Theirs. 

So, shall we proceed, Bobbalino? Or should I say, SitBillyBob? Or maybe just spell it out… Your call.

[Riobard]

I am obviously, for the record, now dismissive of resident narcissists and learned to ignore the tiresome clownish fake news cycles put forward by the court narcissist, but I understand that upwards of 50% among the innocent naïve will cast for a narcissist. All I get is a notification of what I presume to be a disjointed ‘tweet’. But the evidence seems solid that there must be thousands upon thousands of folks willing to feed and egg on any particular narcissist desiring the role of grand poobah narcissist. 

So far, I don’t seem to be ducking any eggs by casting a contrarian vote against a narcissist. What is satisfying, though, is to have a quasi-real-life narcissist to contend with, enabling a channeling of all the built-up energy that arises from observing a range of figurehead narcissists that would make the world a better place by crawling back to the origins of their central mantra, that being “the sun rises and sets in my pocket”, and giving us a well-deserved break.

[SolaceSoul]

28 minutes ago, Riobard said:

news

So, since it’s “fake news”, Rioblather aka SirBillyBob aka Bobbalino, you obviously don’t care if I post your identifying government name and photo, along with the inappropriate contacts that you have made offsite with various posters / clients that they have stated to me and others have made them uncomfortable, labeling you as “creepy” and even “mental”?

You know, since it’s fake news and not really you…

Just say the word. “Yes”, I’ll post. “No”, I won’t. 

I’m completely unconcerned about any potential defamation claims. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. So, let me worry about my own liability.

Yes, or no?

[Riobard]

Hmmm . Must be a robust trust fund in the mix here, inn’t. 

At 50 I was working all day for a living. Not the 5 AM club that a wannabe braggadocio elitist on our forum once described, but my schedule considerably taken up by clinical, research, and academic assignments, not the least of which related to developing finesse in terms of handling narcissists. One decent achievement being the dismissal of a narcissist ranked hierarchically greater than me in an inter-professional system. Humpty’s narcissism set  himself up for a great fall. 

One thing central to my role was the timeless question about the peculiar ways in which people may misdirect energy, including the machinations of narcissists and other characterologically flawed souls. With some 55 weekly hours freed up, along with financial independence, now a bit more luxury in terms of pondering such life questions.

Apparently even the most steadfast of narcissists eventually burn themselves out, a fairly good outcome for the narcissist as well as those in the line of fire of such narcissism. One can facilitate this process by appealing to, that is, inadvertently triggering their intrinsic narcissism. Or maybe prayer, if you’re into that kind of thing?

The particular paradoxical bind for the narcissist, once narcissism has been irreversibly established, is that both a lull in narcissistic expressivity and, in contrast, an inflated degree of pomposity continually expressed, represent the central organizing core of narcissism. Sort of damned if he does or doesn’t. There is little that can disabuse one of the impression that the narcissism was an indelible signature feature.

In some ways, the topic heading ‘I Hate You All’ unintentionally thematically dovetails with the narcissist’s dynamics, though the OP Blk Supe is clearly the polar opposite of a narcissist and I will happily read his content any old time.

I write all this while munching on a tasty crunchy cucumber optimally cooled. 

[Latbear4blk]

9 hours ago, Riobard said:

Word. Thank goodness there are prolific contributors like you that report travel experiences as things that occur due to simple openness to what comes. You can write an interesting and entertaining piece and still walk through an entrance without getting a swollen head stuck. (Yeah I just realized … teehee.)

There’s no emoji for “this guy’s a safe space and I would give him the time of day” but I would plunk it here as well as for the aforementioned superhero. 

I noticed that perhaps you didn’t fully grasp an earlier post. It was intentionally aimed at a menace that definitely did get it. It would have required a being-there component and some historical tracking of forum content; otherwise might come across as serving Twilight Zone-level narrative. I don’t need to pull anybody in to the specifics, and my personal life resources competently cover off processing, but open to inquiries via DM. The guiding principle would be that some truths are stranger than fiction and there’s a lesson in it. As a fellow person from outside the national majority you might get a kick out of it. I’m open to Friendlies regarding sharing experiences; Belligerents unwelcome. 

Thanks for the compliments. 

I want you to know that I did not miss anything. I am ignoring your (both of you) beefing. Both of you have things I like and do not like, but I believe you two are significant contributors to this discussion forum. I have learned from both of you. That learning has changed many of my points of view and attitudes. I am a better person today because I paid attention to whatever knowledge and positive thinking I could get from you two, ignoring the white noise and our differences.

Unfortunately, you two cannot move on from whatever is happening between you. Please, try (harder).

[Riobard]

43 minutes ago, Latbear4blk said:

Thanks for the compliments. 

I want you to know that I did not miss anything. I am ignoring your (both of you) beefing. Both of you have things I like and do not like, but I believe you two are significant contributors to this discussion forum. I have learned from both of you. That learning has changed many of my points of view and attitudes. I am a better person today because I paid attention to whatever knowledge and positive thinking I could get from you two, ignoring the white noise and our differences.

Unfortunately, you two cannot move on from whatever is happening between you. Please, try (harder).

I’m fine. I am happy to tell you all about it. Don’t concern yourself with how it’s played out openly here. I haven’t read him for a good period of time now. Whatever he is up to cannot be controlled. I have dealt with forum members here at least as disturbing, and I have documented records of all my interaction.

I like the forum in many ways but it’s kinda small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. There are a few bright lights and Oz is the salt of the earth, but some others, meh. My main close call was almost but not staying with a member that turned out to be impersonating a lot of high-profile professions (status is not important to me) and had the temerity to assert his expertise in biological weaponry when I began to demo growing progressively more incredulous about the bullshit (I myself have high profile faculty status as a filter for reality). 

[Tomtravel]

I made a quick jump from Bogota to Aruba (Wingo promo fares), which is basically all inclusive resorts, las vegas and dubai combined. And many many cruise ships. Beaches are nice though. I took a public bus to home and it was filled with american cruise tourists returning from the beaches to the ship. The bus was full, cruise gringos a bit drunk (i think, maybe they are “jovial” all the time) and some very nasty comments were shouted to the bus driver. There was a bit discussion in the bus terminal what happened and I was told this happens often. Some vocal ladies and guys in the bus were really the waste water of the humankind.

[floridarob]

8 hours ago, Latbear4blk said:

Please, try (harder).

As much as you try, you sometimes get pulled back in.

I've noticed Scotty isn't posting anymore, however, I don't miss her Highness and I'm sure he doesn't care 😝

Riobard was doing well for awhile, I truly believe he was playing with ChatGPT when his writings were unpretentious 🧐

I've heard of his private messaging to people, only happened once with me, we met briefly in Lagoa...he seemed ok, but not sure what meds he's on (or off) that makes him write in volumes the way he does, sometimes like he's talking to himself 🥱

[SolaceSoul]

2 hours ago, floridarob said:

I've heard of his private messaging to people, only happened once with me, we met briefly in Lagoa...he seemed ok, but not sure what meds he's on (or off) that makes him write in volumes the way he does, sometimes like he's talking to himself 🥱

His inappropriateness and creepiness with posters / clients isn’t just limited to private messages and long, meandering public posts on the board. It has gone far beyond him just being the harmless little socially awkward lonely weirdo on a message board. And he’s done this with several different, completely unrelated posters / clients. 

Notice he’s attempted to call me every name in the book here (well, by pretending not to be talking about / to me, because allegedly, I’m on “ignore”)… but what he WON’T do is call me a liar, and he won’t call my bluff and respond, “yes, post your claims about my identity here.” 

[Half-vaccinated]

This thread needs pinga!

These are brothel boys

 

[Half-vaccinated]

Haitian Pinga

 

 

[Half-vaccinated]

On 5/29/2023 at 10:58 PM, Mavica said:

I agree.  However, read any of the popularly-read travel forums and you will see/witness comments from tourists who aren't really interested in local / national culture, attempting to speak even a few words of the national language.  It's taking Uber everywhere, eating in trendy restaurants favored by foreigners, visiting only the one, two or three popular attractions, etc.  I just returned from 10-days in Mexico and that's what I witness.  Perish the thought visitors would mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals.  Too many people want to check-off a destination from their list, and move-on.

I know people who lives in foreign countries that said, "fuck that language. I speak peso." 

Stop acting like some of you thirsty dirty booty fossils go to these countries and bring your best behavior. You do not!  You cheat the boys and barely tip the servers.  Keep it 💯.  

It is truly a blessingto experience this guys skillz.  

 

This guy can Smash you for hours😄

[Half-vaccinated]

On 5/29/2023 at 4:16 PM, SolaceSoul said:

To clear up any possible confusion you or another poster might have, the original criticisms from me and the other posters (LatBear, Paborn) about the “Ugly American” entitled behavior weren’t about you. They were aimed at the half-vaccinated poster. 

Word on the street is that you are a scammer and cokehead nowdays. 

[Half-vaccinated]

On 5/28/2023 at 11:06 AM, paborn said:

Just for the record. I do not have a seasonal guy who I discard. My first lasted 7 years and died in an accident. 

Im really sorry to hear that. But was that the car you bought?  Lots of travelers read the board and somebody in boxed me.  They also said you never got a chance to ride in it. Again, sorry for your loss.

[SolaceSoul]

4 hours ago, Half-vaccinated said:

Word on the street is that you are a scammer and cokehead nowdays. 

Ha! That’s hilarious. I’ve never even smoked a tobacco cigarette in my entire life, much less a hard drug. As for coke, I do like a good and Coke — Cuba Libre. But keep digging! I do admire your tenacity and thirst for knowledge — even if you keep coming up empty. 

[paborn]

4 hours ago, Half-vaccinated said:

Im really sorry to hear that. But was that the car you bought?  Lots of travelers read the board and somebody in boxed me.  They also said you never got a chance to ride in it. Again, sorry for your loss.

I have never purchased a car for anyone. Whoever "in boxed " you does not know me at all if they think I purchased a car. it's an absurd idea.  A tourist, even a frequent visitor, can only help to provide opportunities, alleviate hardships, provide a pride to a better life. Make sure they can stay in school, etc.

Beyond that, you are not helping you are bestowing gifts to buy love - it buys sex, not love and says more of you than anything else.

Also, if someone has bought a car for anyone, you should know them and the reasons they did it. If you don't know the actual relationship and situation neither you nor I are in a position to judge.

Really, you should not pay attention to "in box" rumors. We gays just love dish - I have not spoke to a tourist in Santo Domingo in over ten years.

Good Lord 

[Riobard]

7 hours ago, Half-vaccinated said:

Word on the street is that you are a scammer and cokehead nowdays. 

Half right half-vaxx.

Let’s back this up. 

The OP never had an issue with your content.

Lurking trolls will spread shade at any opening they can get and where the shade lands is usually random and often peculiar. Like the flavour of the week. They may be inclined to misappropriate the true provenance of terms such as ‘ugly American’.

Narcissistic scammers within the lurking troll community will declare a vigilante stance over the most droll occurrences, putting forward implausible deniability about MO. In this case we see an open admission from such a narcissist S that his selectively gunning for somebody R was that, via hearsay, a third party, B presumably as B is the most likely candidate (besides T and F the only others possible otherwise, having personally crossed paths with R) didn’t particularly like somebody he eventually crossed paths with, R, with whom a positive exchange over months previously lead to a meet-up for a meal.

Historically, S is a bitch on wheels with R and prone to amateurish diagnostic formulation. This is ironic considering R’s status. S openly described legitimizing his insane belligerence by attempting to distance himself from obvious manifestations of narcissism attributed to him. His source B was somehow cloned and evidently a series of mitosis yielded an enormous grouping of persons throwing shade on R. Delusions abound. S also declared personal contact with R in a mutual setting, a contact that never occurred but was fabricated scam-grade in a desperate manipulative attempt to self-justify his pejorative impressions. High-grade manipulative weaponry is the hallmark of a narcissist. 

S’s ground-bound cape progressively shredded owing to R’s astute grasp of reality, S then misanthropically appropriated the shenanigans of L(J), U, and M, themselves narcissistically inclined, related to their inappropriate cunty assertions that a member on another board and R, here, are the same person. S having done this is reflected to R by a friend as R is not want to view the toxic material of a flagrant narcissist. This sad ungentlemanly behaviour, now reported on two boards and under review, also reeks of implausible deniability and what we see is the representation of a few pathetic jackasses slithering about and a few small-minded minions getting sucked in by them.

R doesn’t have a pressing need for allies and interprets lack of open board empathy as reflective of understandable distance stance from conflict, not as cowardice. R has a backchannel support system here and a radius of personal social support.

Getting back to B; B, an inveterate scammer himself, would have wondered why R’s demeanour changed when on to the scam. B is not well. R has known and worked with others that impersonate various high-profile professions. An abrupt change in R-B dynamics and desperation by B to maintain his scam seems to be the source of the aspersions cast upon R and that form the basis of S’s narcissistic ammo. My friend tells me that a few out of control maniacs here may have identifying info about R they are open to sharing. Nobody here would consent to it and if being held hostage is not grounds for a ban, what is? These assertions (by S? others?) are, well you get the picture. These last few assumptions are less verifiable because R never openly confronted B and R can only assume that S’s reference to a young person is B. R’s friend described that S has declared a cadre in type and age of members that have labelled R as creepy, unhinged, mentally unwell.

B may be sociopathic and an in-person encounter was what flipped the lid off the black box of his fabrications. R has never shared B’s ID or handle. B had staked a claim to a bizarrely vast set of professional credentials and affiliations. R, himself a high profile academic, cannot fathom why B thought R so naïve. B apparently catfishes locals with fraudulent social capital. B is charming on the surface and it is sad that B cannot just be himself. R has no desire to harm B but referencing him is essential in elucidating the well-established history of S’s derogatory and condescending commentary. In some ways, B and S should just get a room. However, two personality disorders fellows would not fly well, inn’t. B and R have a lengthy recorded text history. If B were to have breached boundaries, not surprising for a characterologically unhinged fellow, and as my friend has suggested when reading the thread, the Hiroshima/Nagasaki fallout would be such that the person most likely to brush off the ashes and walk away is R, make no mistake. R has all the goods, has B’s ‘number’.

Openly disclosing info about R is forbidden. A written record of slander/libel now exists. A statement of blackmail lives on the board. Guess who is in control. R’e assumptions about B are presumptive and R reserves definitive judgement but Hakim’s Razor is often a solid guiding principle. R has not revealed B’s identity and would wish to be judicious in this regard. However, R would welcome any concrete record of what was said about R behind R’s back, and if in conjunction with ID, that has taken things to a very different level. 

T and R are friends. F may be somebody that can grow on R, an acquired taste taken in small doses, but runs in many directions. One can take or leave F and he can be inflammatory according to some of his content. R can handle F as F is well, basic, basic and at heart a good guy, maybe? B is out of the picture for years but it appears lives in perpetuity vis-a-vis S’ batch of flimsy slings and arrows.
R has no interest in a connection with L(J), U, or M. S is somebody R wouldn’t give the time of day to but S certainly applies for such time and attention relentlessly. S is the most interesting from an academic viewpoint, a scratching post rehearsal for the exigency of how-to manuals related to co-existing among social media trolls. S is not definitively a narcissist and R has described impressions but a formal diagnosis is deferred and is not R’s role or prerogative. It’s just social media Board, and perceptions are, as such, subject to limits.

So, scammer is an apt term as put forward by HV. Coke merely a metaphor for insatiable attention-seeking cravings. Coke is corrosive. Don’t drink the coke. R would not drink coke between clinically related expert witness testimony breaks.

[floridarob]

WTF????

Are two of you sharing lines........

[paborn]

7 minutes ago, floridarob said:

WTF????

Are two of you sharing lines........

I'm , often, mystified by what I read here. But, this???? 

[Riobard]

I have not shared any personal official government-issued identification with any member of the board. It has come to my attention that one or more members of our board has claimed possession of that level of documentation.

I have had face-to-face contact with 3 members of the board. I have not ever turned over any ID of this nature. Anybody in possession of my identification or facsimile thereof is holding stolen or misappropriated property. Anybody that has declared such possession is, similarly, in violation of the law. I believe it is termed identification theft. Tread on thin ice at your peril.

I add that, formally, I urge anybody in possession of the aforementioned material to assiduously document how they came to be in possession of it, including any contextual factors, in case of a memory lapse going forward. Optionally, direct mail me here if you see fit. 

I will deal with the ‘peanut gallery’ later as I do not have access to all submitted content while handling the central demands of the bully brigade. My prediction is that it is misguided hostile pejorative ridiculing content from guys not particularly bright in some matters. 

[Half-vaccinated]

5 hours ago, SolaceSoul said:

Ha! That’s hilarious. I’ve never even smoked a tobacco cigarette in my entire life, much less a hard drug. As for coke, I do like a good and Coke — Cuba Libre. But keep digging! I do admire your tenacity and thirst for knowledge — even if you keep coming up empty. 

Yes you are missy.  Stone cokehead is the term I'm told.  To each his own vices, enjoy🤣🤣🤣🥶.   But it's the International Online Scamming that you perpetuate against unsuspecting gay tourist I find alarming.  How could you? 😡🤬🤬 And to think we were in a safe sharing space.😥