Related Recs

💋

God this is A terrible story

I was very unapproachable and emitted a foul hostile energy that repelled any boys with good sense in high school who may have otherwise been attracted to me. But there was one boy, S., who really liked me (my mother told me recently: ‘I could tell that boy had no self-respect for dating you‘ LOL and she’s so right). I loathed him and found him to be so profoundly irritating and utterly lacking in refinement or taste but he tried his best to win me over by constantly assaulting me with his boisterous and animated presence. Unfortunately, I was on the court for my cousin’s quinceanera and needed a date, so I finally bit, having no other options and needing to RSVP several months in advance of the date of the event with the name of my ‘escort.’ We started dating before then because why not. My friends threw a surprise birthday party for me at my neighborhood park and after singing happy birthday to me, they all started chanting at me in unison to kiss S., so we went behind a tree for privacy and complied. All I really remember is that his mouth tasted like a burger exactly like the Wet Hot American Summer quote. This lanky string bean of a young man legitimately only ate pizza and hamburgers and only drank Dr. Pepper (I recently heard that he had come down with gout and I can see why). He had a giant collection of dirty Converse shoes, which he kept in a pile and wore to the exclusion of all other footwear, and he called them Chucks. He would write me love letters and I would correct the grammar and syntax in red pen and return them to him. He would talk about the children we were going to have someday and tell me that the song “Maybe I'm Amazed” by Paul McCartney made him think of me; I would tell him that I don’t think teenagers can experience real love. I convinced him to grow a beard to hide his off-putting pointy chin that made him look exactly like the tragedy and comedy masks ‘because it just looks so much better’ which he has not shaved since. 🎭 He ended up having an emotional affair with a pizza delivery girl from Oregon who was probably a catfish on the forums for the television show Psych (which he was obsessed with), which hurt my ego more than anything. After the breakup I burned all of the drawings and handmade gifts he had given me in a barbecue grill. I hope he’s found a sweet simpleton who treats him well and gives him what he needs. That’s the story of my evil past and the boy who gave me my first kiss.

@taterhole

Oct 16, 2024

👻

my friend alex from 3rd grade

I was a bit of a menace in elementary school. I was very hyperactive and restless and had some authority issues, and on top of that just generally didn’t fit in well with a lot of my peers. the friends I did have all belonged to the same sort of social misfit group as me, and alex was one of these friends. he was a pretty edgy kid and probably had some anger issues looking back on it. his home life was also a bit rough, I think one of his parents had some serious medical issues. he was also a jewish kid in a exceedingly waspy environment and was new to the school, so there were a lot of reasons he probably felt othered there. he and I used to play together at recess every day with two girls and pretend like we were the characters in the Spiderwick Chronicles, collecting weird rocks and cicada wings and pretending like they were goblin teeth and fairy wings. alex and I would also hang out after school sometimes, usually at his house because he had Halo and Call of Duty and I wasn’t allowed to have violent video games at home. sometimes we’d sneak into construction sites of houses that were still being built and just mess around. we’d go up on the roofs and sit and talk for a while, getting about as “deep” as a conversation between 9 year olds could be. mostly it was commiserating about feeling out of place and talking about which girls we liked. eventually we had some kind of falling out, I forget exactly what happened but I seem to recall that there was some tension over us both liking the same girl. my mom also thought he was a bad influence so she stopped sending me to playdates at his place. I think we both went to the same middle school and high school but ran in very different circles, so we didn’t interact at all after elementary school. years later I looked him up on socials out of curiosity and found out that he had become a radical zionist and I think he was a part of one of those programs where foreigners can volunteer for the IDF. i think he moved there and now is working for a non-profit supporting the IDF. I’m personally ideologically aligned entirely on the other side of the spectrum from him, but thinking on it now it makes sense to me how someone who grew up feeling alienated would be attracted to the zionist narrative. still it’s crazy to me how differently people’s lives can play out despite at one point sharing similar environments

@royallmonarch

May 27, 2024

🌎

Love at first sight at a high school model un

I was sixteen, we had met at a High School Model UN taking place in University for a week long. She arrived late and I fell for her as soon as she walked in. Throughout the week I would soon discover she was the funniest and most charming person there. Our sessions were modeled after WHO and the theme was suicide prevantion, we all cried in the last few days because everyone had a personal connection with the topic, and it was so intense. Me and her would bond in between sessions and for the last day I brough her a brownie, but ants had taken over the sweet treat before it could reach her. We started seeing each other afterwards. Our first kiss was right after a play I was doing and she had come to watch. It was after everyone had already left, and it was just the two of us in front of my school's gate. My face still had a bit of white clown paint I had tried to clean in a rush, but she still held my face close and we kissed. It was stiff and awkward, I still had to get home early to study for a presentation I had the next day, and hadn't even started to research for, but ultimate it was warm and lovely. We dated for a few months but I had to move and ended up difting apart.

@nanabo

Mar 17, 2025

Top Recs from @taterhole

🧸

Never changing

My dad teases me about how when I was a little kid, my favorite thing to do when I was on the landline phone with somebody—be it a relative or one of my best friends—was to breathlessly describe the things that were in my bedroom so that they could have a mental picture of everything I loved and chose to surround myself with, and where I sat at that moment in time. Perfectly Imperfect reminds me of that so thanks for always listening and for sharing with me too 💌

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

🏄

SURFING THE TIDES OF THE EVERYONE TAB

I am a woman of the people

@taterhole

May 28, 2025

🖐

Rejecting the Commodification of the Self

I’ve been thinking about how much of social media is centered around curating our self-image. When selfies first became popular, they were dismissed as vain and vapid—a critique often rooted in misogyny—but now, the way we craft our online selves feels more like creating monuments. We try to signal our individuality, hoping to be seen and understood, but ironically, I think this widens the gap between how others perceive us and who we really are. Instead of fostering connection, it can invite projection and misinterpretation—preconceived notions, prefab labels, and stereotypes. Worse, individuality has become branded and commodified, reducing our identities to products for others to consume. On most platforms, validation often comes from how well you can curate and present your image—selfies, aesthetic branding, and lifestyle content tend to dominate. High engagement is tied to visibility, not necessarily depth or substance. But I think spaces like PI.FYI show that there’s another way: where connection is built on shared ideas, tastes, and interests rather than surface-level content. It’s refreshing to be part of a community that values thoughts over optics. By sharing so few images of myself, I’ve found that it gives others room to focus on my ideas and voice. When I do share an image, it feels intentional—something that contributes to the story I want to tell rather than defining it. Sharing less allows me to express who I am beyond appearance. For women, especially, sharing less can be a radical act in a world where the default is to objectify ourselves. It resists the pressure to center appearance, focusing instead on what truly matters: our thoughts, voices, and authenticity. I’ve posted a handful of pictures of myself in 2,500 posts because I care more about showing who I am than how I look. In trying to be seen, are we making it harder for others to truly know us? It’s a question worth considering.

@taterhole

Dec 27, 2024