Most people have encouraged you to be direct, and they are right in that it will very quickly get you a yes no answer. And also that it’s more effective on men.

But it’s equally true that if someone isn’t expecting that at all, a confession can surprise and stress them, as they struggle to put their feelings towards you together and decide on a future right in that moment.

And that can sometimes lead to rejection when it might not have occurred had the way been paved a bit more gradually.

To get specific, that involves doing things with just the two of you. But it also usually involves doing a shared interest, which you’ve said you don’t have.

So if you’re serious, I would suggest you think about what you know of his interests, and seeing if there’s anything you’d potentially like to know more about/get involved in.

Then say something like “hey I’ve started getting into __ a little bit, and I know you’ve been into that for a while, do you know of any __ happening soon I could go to?”

If he has any interest in you at all and is not completely dense, he will usually mention something, and if he does he’ll possibly invite you. Even if it’s like “don’t know of anything now but that sounds fun”, that is also an invitation for you to look up and propose events.

Once you’re at __ together, as the “expert” in the topic he’ll naturally take on more of the “host” role, which will get him talking. If he stops, unfortunately it is usually the woman that has to “go fishing” for topics, since men are not very good at it. Luckily being at __, which you’re not familiar, with means your questions will be real and natural.

And then there is the simple fact that if a man said “I’m cold” and then leaned against a women, he would be thought as creepy, pushy, or presumptuous, but if a woman does it, it’s sweet and endearing even if the man doesn’t like them romantically, because it shows you feel safe with him.

But sometimes, a man doesn’t know how he feels until he’s forced to notice. That will get him to notice. And then he’ll decide, and since men are not very good about hiding their emotions, as they’ve never been forced to, you’ll almost certainly know his decision by how he behaves toward you after that.

And if you think the answers yes, it’s then when you’d be direct. Of course, if you’ve dropped enough hints, maybe you won’t have to.

Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about dogs

“Democracy is never good” lol.

You forgot the next part of the quote by Churchill “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that have ever been tried.”

The truth if you actually look at history is that the greatest advancements in human civilization have occurred in democracy’s or meritocracies (especially if both).

The Greek, Roman’s, English democracy, French Revolution, and America: all of these civilizations, though massively unequal compared to current societies, represented huge quality of living standard increases when compared to their contemporary rivals.

They were all forms of democracies, where to the extent possible for their time they gave chances for their citizens to be involved, and were rewarded for it by being strong enough to dominate the world around them.

Democracies aren’t just better morally, they are better economically, militarily, diplomatically, and culturally. The fact that some become corrupt or populist doesn’t change that.

So speaking as an American, the Indian diaspora here is typically thought of positively, at least in the sense they tend to be responsible members of the community.

Unfortunately, Americans are pretty geopolitically ignorant, and so end up developing views on countries based on the behavior of their American communities.

So I would say most Americans impression of India is “vaguely positive”. This notably includes at least tacit approval from American conservatives, in that Indians are left off their “which minority group are we targeting today” bingo card.

This is probably mutually reinforcing with America’s geopolitical priorities, which is essentially deepening ties with India as a counterbalance to China.

As to your “too proud of your country” comment, obviously as an American I sympathize, but they’re not wrong in that because of your country’s size and growth, India will become more prominent in global affairs.

Unfortunately as you’ve noticed, that leads to some people having an inflated view of themselves. It’s just something you have to live with as a world power.

Anyway, the below article actually answers your question, and overall, generally positive is the answer (but what did you guys do to South Africa though?)

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/08/29/international-views-of-india-and-modi/

I mean, the more solid plan is to back the president that cut taxes for the rich, as opposed to a president whose promised to increase taxes for the rich.

So I don’t think a straight value proposition analysis applies to entities whose assets under management exceed the GDP of most countries and who are already deeply involved in the politics in the form of lobbying.

Honestly this was true for large parts of USAs history, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now.

In truth our democrat and republicans reps have almost no similar voting history, they vote the opposite of each other on almost every issue.

Below is a good visualization of what I mean. You can see that from the 50’s to the 80’s, there was really quite a bit of voting overlap by the parties, so during that period, you’d be right, both parties could be consider the same or similar.

But for the last 30 years or so, democrats and republicans have had very little overlap on what they vote in favor for. It’s party line votes on almost everything.

So how people can say “both parties are the same”, when they vote the opposite on almost everything is beyond me.

And that’s not even taking into account executive actions, like for example for the last 50 years or so every democrat president has provided contraceptives as part of foreign aid, and every republican has not.

We may not have options in terms of political parties to choose from, which I agree is bad, but saying both parties are the same is to be willfully blind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/

What data do you have to say neither of those options are relevant?

“Mid-priced homes are becoming more popular with investors, making up 32% of investor purchases in the fourth quarter, a record high. Low-priced homes are still most popular with investors, making up 37% of purchases.”

Low cost homes, exactly the ones in rural/historically low income area you described, are the most purchased category of residential real estate.

Also, the downtowns of those areas, which are almost all single story commercial/retail, are exactly the places most in need of walkable, dense development I’m describing, especially if there’s a housing shortage and most of the surrounding areas already have built up residential developments.

So both of those options are actually more relevant for your example then the US as a whole.

https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q4-2021/

You seem to attribute the housing affordability crisis the last few years to WFH-ers, but isn’t it more fair to say that there are multiple other factors contributing to it?

Not just the post COVID appreciation for housing, but things like historically high percentage of investor owned homes (including corporate and foreign buyers), and historically low building rates compared to projected need, to name a few.

So then the question becomes, which of these should we focus on? For me, that means what gives you the most positives, and least negatives.

Let’s look at three options:

1. Banning corporate and foreign non-occupying homeowners from owning American residential real estate
2. Rezoning low density areas (particularly single story commercial/retail in smaller cities and towns’ downtowns) into vertical dense mixed use residential and commercial/retail development
3. Ending work from home

1 and 2 accomplish our primary goal of reducing home prices across the country, both by increasing supply (1 would too, since those investors would need to sell, increasing supply), and 1 would also reduce demand. 3 does not, because any price reductions in rural areas will be offset by higher rates in urban one

2 also gives us positive secondary benefit of encouraging walkable cities, which leads to health improvements, less traffic, and reduced climate impact. 1 would also increase business investment, encouraging long term growth, if the “money printer” option of buying US residential properties and collecting rent is not available.

3 gives us no positive secondary benefits, and since it does essentially the opposite of 2 in terms of walkability, it also is the only one with a high negative cost.

So pretty clearly that idea is the worst one for solving housing affordability. So why support it when their are other much better options available to accomplish your goal?

So I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not trans, so I can’t speak to that specifically. And if that perspective is what’s important to you, feel free to ignore.

But the main thing to remember is that they are not hating you because you are trans.

They hate you because they are hateful people, and will use whatever justification they can to avoid treating everyone well.

First it was black people, then Latin people, then gay people, etc.

They will always pick a group, big enough for them to be aware of but small enough they feel can be bullied without consequence.

And unfortunately right now, trans people are that group. But looking at the above list should also give you hope, because they tried to dehumanize all of those groups, and they lost every. Single. Time.

So just remember that ultimately if your not hurting anyone, then you are not doing anything wrong, and feel free to tell anyone that tells you otherwise to go fuck themselves. For being trans, or anything else.

Remember MLK’s quote, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.