Related Recs

🙁

case by case

had times where me and the other person weren’t really in each other’s lives before dating so there wasn’t an existing shared community or anything to keep us in proximity to each other. kinda just follow those folks lightly on socials now but don’t really keep in touch. net zero not the worst. had one time where the romantic relationship really didn’t work out, just lack of compatibility and not being what the other person needed, but the emotional connection and proximity/availability kept us both coming back to each other to maintain the relationship platonically. kind of resulted in a messy situation where boundaries were unclear and that just lead to more hurt and confusion than had we dealt with being apart and feeling alone in the moment and then come back together as friends after letting time pass. ultimately ended up cutting that person out of my life entirely after moving away and realizing in retrospect that I had allowed this person to violate a lot of my personal boundaries for the sake of feeling like I had someone I could confide in, and that they were taking advantage of me being a pushover to feel wanted/not alone. all this to say, ask yourself: what is it that this person brings to your life outside of what comes exclusively from the romantic aspect of the relationship? if this person was simply available to you to spend time together, seek company from existing friends, or find a new community to be a part of. if this person was a close confidant and understood you in a way you felt seen by, maybe practice more vulnerability with your current friends/family/whoever and ask yourself what it is that makes you feel seen/appreciated in those relationships? seek that out! in the immediate aftermath of a breakup, it’s going to seem like there is no one else that can take the space that person is leaving. but that doesn’t have to be the case, and investing in the non-romantic relationships you already have can address the valid needs that you have and strengthen your existing connections. romantic love is important, but other forms of love are just as fulfilling and crucial to your thriving! maybe with time you will come to notice that this person had something you value nonromantically and hopefully y’all can find a new place for each other in your lives, and that can be very rewarding! or maybe you will realize this person met certain unaddressed needs in the moment that you can find in other relationships. don’t feel the need to keep em around if that’s the case.

@royallmonarch

Mar 12, 2024

😃

Reconnect with dormant/new parts of yourself

The most challenging part of breakups for me is rebuilding the infrastructure of your own life. Reconnect with the things you used to do before you started dating someone—(they might feel different and you might find they no longer work the way they used to, this is normal and okay) and find new things that help re-light the curiosity of your own life. We know so much less than we *think we do about what we might like/who we are, and breakups offer the perfect time to collect a little pile of ways/things/friends that help you feel more in touch with what you love and who you are. Gonna feel uncomfortable and weird but that means it’s working. Sending you love ❤️

@sophia

Mar 16, 2024

1️

taking a break from dating

Feels reallllllllly tempting following a romantic fallout to "get back out there" for several reasons: to prove (to yourself?) that you are desirable, to fill a void left by ex partner, to see if things feel different with other people, to try to comfort yourself with the knowledge that not everyone is as shitty as the last person u dated. (sidenote: spend time with the question of what it fulfills for you) This is rarely ever the right move. At least in my experience. I've literally caused myself psychic damage by jumping back in too fast lol. As cliche as it is, the best advice I have is to spend time (LIKE, TIMEEEEE. months) "dating yourself." You will gain confidence, learn more about yourself + have space from the event that leaves you feeling like dating is so difficult right now. Time really does heal all wounds...but jumping right back into dating is like picking a scab. Fill up your cup in other ways in the meantime. Eventually, it will feel more natural/comfortable for you to ease back into dating - instead of trying to cram yourself into it and thinking that there's something wrong with you/you've sustained permanent damage because it's difficult. Your wounds won't be as fresh and you'll have a clearer picture of what you can/can't tolerate in a romantic relationship. It's hard! But u can do it! <3

@sunnyd123

Apr 1, 2024

Top Recs from @royallmonarch

🌊

WATCHING MOVING WATER

just sit still and listen. drink it in.

@royallmonarch

5d ago

📴

DETACH from the algo, become an active participant in your own curation, form relationships to music, track your patterns

I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that aren’t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to — which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since you’re listening to something really just because it’s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take what’s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order. so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, it’s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework that’s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether it’s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data. Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so i’m forced to consider its value (usually i’ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as i’ll buy a few releases i’ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they don’t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until i’m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isn’t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music. so how do you know what to order? for me, I’m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether it’s bandcamp daily, y’all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because it’s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences it’s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because there’s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now i’m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. LAST thing i’ll say — because in yappin about this i’m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of “vibes” and “aesthetics” and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship i’m forming with what i’ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didn’t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. that’s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now i’ve actually taken time to consider it, it’s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often i’ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason. aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume

@royallmonarch

Feb 29, 2024

🚲

GOING ON A SUMMER SUNSET BIKE RIDE

many treats to be had

@royallmonarch

3d ago