Even when a menu has listings for allergens, it can be tricky to narrow down which items have milk and which don't because people just love putting cheese on everything. Like, obviously this cheeseburger has milk, but would it still have milk if I ordered it WITHOUT the cheese?

And I realize that I am a hard person to plan for, menu wise, which is why I typically just say, "You don't have to get me anything. I'll take care of myself." But if you want to get me some food, I wish it would be something that both my brain and body will recognize as food.

Granted, I'm a pretty hard sell for home cooking in general. Thank you for your offer of casserole, person who keeps multiple pets and doesn't establish boundaries with any of them, but I think I will just go to a restaurant, where the kitchen is inspected periodically.

And this may be a lactose intolerance thing. There's a lot of "creamy mashed potatoes," "creamy gravy," "cream of mushroom soup," "macaroni and cheese," and "whipped cream on the sweet potato pie," going on in the typical Thanksgiving menu, so for me it is a day of poison.

In this case, I suppose it comes down to how much one enjoys the very specific meal somebody at some point decided we are all expected to eat on the last Thursday of November. Which I guess is fine if you enjoy mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and roast turkey.

So some of it does fall to us single people to not be insufferable sadsacks all the time. But also, when someone tells you they're sad, please don't dismiss that as "well, you shouldn't be, because you don't actually have the problem you are experiencing!"

And, like, I get it, to an extent. It can't be fun to have to slog through single whining, and making your unpartnered friends and acquaintances stop being bummers is an understandable desire.

Example: "I feel unlovable [in the sense that I worry I am considered romantically and sexually undesirable]."
"Oh, you're not! You are very well loved [in the sense that you have many platonic friends]!" Even when it comes from a well-meaning place, it's essentially a rhetorical shell game.

"Anyone who's single after thirty is single for a reason!" Well, to be fair, there was that time when I was finishing graduate school that in-person interactions were outright banned for a few months and then heavily discouraged for a year and a half after that. So, like, that's A reason.

Those are all concerns in a cohabiting relationship, too, but I'm willing to navigate diminished personal space and control over my environment for someone I'm in love with. Less so for Dave, an acquaintance's cousin who also had trouble affording city rent.