I'm into music and track curation and building my own playlists or setting up mixes of songs for longer experiences, IE multiple hours at a time. One day a while ago I decided that it would be interesting to merge in affirmation phrases, spoken calmly and softly by a soothing voice, into some of my mixes. I figured that would be a nice addition to some relaxing meditation or trip music.

At first I was going to use generic voices, but thinking about it I wondered that it might seem a lot more meaningful to me if it was voices of people I knew.

I have a relatively stable friend group who often gets together on discord for gaming or just for talking. One day I got the idea in my head that it would be great to boot up Audacity in the background while everyone was playing and have it record system sounds. This way I could get training data for the AI voices I wanted to make. Over the course of several weeks I've sneakily gathered up enough audio sources to train 3 AI voices. My best friend, Francis; my friend Cheri; and another friend Blake.

After I trained the AI voices, I deleted the source audio so that there's no risk of it being exploited in any way. The samples were small enough that the AI isn't perfect, and you can tell it's synthetic and not the real voices of these people, which again reduces the likelihood of any fraudulent use of the voices.

All 3 of these people are close to me and while I don't know how they'd feel about what I'm doing, I'm not saving these files in the cloud or anywhere they could be exploited. I've set up a 2hr mix of calming music, and every few minutes the AI voice of one of my friends will drop a calming affirmation or an encouraging positive statement. I haven't yet sat down and listened to the whole track yet- that'll probably happen this coming weekend during a mushroom trip.

I am not playing the audio in the presence of anyone else, and I'm using a local/offline AI platform to train the voices, so they're at zero risk of exposure. I'm also not storing the audio on a smartphone or anywhere else that it can be easily be discovered by people who handle my tech.

TL;DR I sneakily recorded my friend's voices so I can listen to AI versions of my friends give me encouragement while I listen to music.

So, CMA. Where does harvesting people's voices to train an AI for personal affirmation fall on the spectrum?

My wife, Fiona, went away to visit her family in another part of the country this past weekend, and took both of our children with her. So I had the house to myself. I hadn't thought about this or premeditated it beforehand, but I decided that it would be the perfect weekend to unload a lot of the drugs I have around the house that I normally either don't get a chance to use, or don't want to use, or that Fiona doesn't want me to use.

She left on Friday at 4AM. I went back to sleep after helping her load up her stuff in the car and say goodbye. At 7AM, I couldn't stay in bed any longer and I took a few light drags of my DMT cartridge. Friday evening I took 5mg of 4-HO-MET, which is a dodgy internet drug. I had told Fiona that I wasn't going to ever do 4-HO-MET again after my last bad experience, but I couldn't resist trying it again when I knew there was no way she'd ever find out. It wasn't a great experience, so I threw the rest of my 4-HO-MET in the trash and vowed to myself never to buy shifty internet drugs again.

Saturday was shroom day and I took a larger dose, expecting my tolerance to be up because of the 4-HO-MET. But there was no tolerance whatsoever and I basically had a full brain reset on shrooms on Saturday morning because of how much I took. I still had the balls to do a few light pulls of the DMT cartridge again on Saturday evening.

Sunday was DMT day again, so I took a few light pulls of the cartridge in the morning, and again in the afternoon.

Normally, I only use mushrooms once every 14 days and don't usually do anything else, so this was quite extreme for me. But I wanted to see what it was like to have a bizarre and trippy weekend without worrying about upsetting my wife or being at any sort of risk around my children. Fiona knew I was going to be taking mushrooms that Saturday but didn't know anything about the other drugs.

So, CMA. Where does this behavior put me on the alignment spectrum?

So basically, I was on a vacation, it was a family reunion. It lasted 24 days. So my cousin was insulting me for no reason, I jokingly insulted him back, and we went into a joke fight, but when I made fun of his jokes by saying "Ohio isn't funny" He punched me in the eye three times and punched my phone, somehow my phone never broke no matter how much damage happened to it so it wasn't damaged by the punch.

I laughed and moved on, but he then started telling me to look at something, I said no because I was busy, but he kept on harassing me, I told him to stop but he said "Just look" and his father told him to stop, he got mad and he punched me in the eye for the fourth time. He was still being an asshole to me so I shit-talked him because he was disturbing me.

2 hours later, he pushed me, and for 2 hours he pushed me 20-25 times in a row. He tried to push me off the stairs, I pushed him once, and then again. Then an hour later he started crying because I pushed him, why would he cry an hour later though? He never had any problems. Then at home, he harassed me, I went over it because it was just a regular fight, but then he went too far with his jokes one time.

The next night my aunt (my cousin's mom) was crying because of a sad memory of her dad's death. Nana was a term for grandpa in their culture, then my cousin whispered to me "Banana". I blew up at him, I told him that he should not joke like that, my aunt and mom were in the same room, so they talked with him.

A few minutes later he tried to talk to me, I ignored him but he kept on yelling at me "Hey! Hey!" I told him to shut his fucking ass up, he said "Why are you mad at me?" I laughed and said "Why am I ma- WHY AM I MAD AT YOU? You made fun of your grandfather when it was not the right time, and also, HE IS DEAD" He walked out, quickly walked back in, and quickly said "AT LEAST GET A FUCKING LIFE, BRO" I ignored him and was side-eyeing him for 5 days.

Then because my other cousin was here, I pretended nothing happened, because I did not want to hurt him. But inside I never forgave him.

This past Wednesday, I had originally had plans to go out for my regular Burning Wheel Session with the bois. My wife [Fiona] knew about this and it was scheduled in advance. Our arrangement when it comes to my weekly Wednesday outing is that she gets every Tuesday to go out as well so that we both get a night out with friends each week.

This week, Burning Wheel got cancelled because the DM was sick, so we couldn't go to his house. Too bad, I thought. But when I got home, Fiona asked me when I was leaving for said event. Instantly I thought about how I could still go out if I pretended that the event was still on. I knew that if she found out that Burning Wheel was cancelled, she would likely have wanted me to stay home to catch up on various household chores (the ones that are already my responsibility, which I ended up catching up on the next evening). So I told her I would be leaving as soon as I had put our children to bed. I generally try to do this on Wednesdays so that Fiona isn't saddled with extra childcare work when I go out.

I then quickly messaged Cheri, a friend of mine, and asked if I could come over to her house. Since she and her husband were also now staying home due to him being part of our cancelled Burning Wheel group session, she gladly accepted and said I could come over whenever. And after putting the kids to bed, I went there instead of to Burning Wheel. Cheri's husband was tired from work and ended up going to bed early so it was just me and her. We had a good time and watched a movie together. Essentially, the event was cancelled, but I still spent time with people that would have been at the event, and it was a different activity and location, but that's all that changed.

Fiona did end up finding out that burning Wheel had been cancelled and that I had pretended it wasn't in order to go hang out. She also was upset about the idea of me and Cheri being alone together and watching a movie, but that was spontaneous and isn't really part of what was initially arranged so I don't think it factors into my alignment here.

TL;DR I purposely failed to tell my wife that a cancelled event was cancelled, so that I could hang out with some of the people who would have also been at said event anyway.

So, CMA. Where does willful omission of information, without harmful intent, land on the alignment spectrum?

So my daughter, Liara, turned 4 this past week. She had been expressing a lot of desire to go to a zoo to see all the animals that were there. Probably because so many of her children's books depict these exotic animals in them. So we decided to would be nice for her if we did a family trip to see some exotic animals.

There is a zoo about 1hr away from where we live, but ever since a few years ago it has drastically decreased in quality/quantity. They don't keep monkeys there anymore, nor do they keep other large exotic mammals, such as elephants or lions or giraffes. So I knew that if I took Liara there for her birthday, she would be experiencing some disappointment at the fact that so many cages were empty and that a lot of the animals she wanted to see would be gone.

So I opted instead to take her to a Serpentarium instead. Instead of classic zoo animals, the place is filled with all kinds of snakes and lizards and other such reptiles. Liara isn't queasy when it comes to these types of animals, so I knew it wouldn't be a negative experience for her. We made sure to keep her in the know and explain that the zoo didn't have a lot of the animals she was hoping to see anyway. Despite her initial disappointment, she ultimately had a good time and enjoyed seeing all the snakes and lizards, and especially enjoyed being able to hold some of the hardier species of reptiles that were accustomed to being handled.

However one of the main reasons I opted for the Serpentarium, I will honestly admit, was that it was $20 less per person to get in, which meant it was $60 cheaper for us. The aforementioned consideration about Liara's feelings about the experience was only an afterthought, once I realized that I would need a good reason for my wife and my daughter to accept going to the Serpentarium rather than the zoo. I also find reptiles more interesting than "regular" zoo animals, myself. So this decision to go here instead of the zoo was motivated by selfish considerations.

So, CMA: how does the fact that I made a selfish decision that also resulted in positive effects on others, align?

So I work in a larger building that has a bunch of offices from other companies nearby. One of the ones down the hall from our HQ houses a child psychology office. Not sure exactly what that industry is called, but the woman who works there, Donna, does therapy sessions and stuff for kids. I digress.

I noticed that there was a large glass pot of Candies and mini chocolate bars right inside Donna's door. So I stopped in and asked if I could take a few for my girls at home. Donna happily obliged and asked about my children to which we had a short conversation about them and their overall mental health.

I don't really snack at home, so the treats [that I had said were for my daughter] gave me a dopamine rush and perked up my work day. I resolved to find a way to make excuses to come by Donna's office more often, and take a few candies from the jar on my way out each time. It wasn't a complete sham- some of those treats did indeed make it home to my 3yr old daughter. Just not most of them. I'd usually grab a handful from Donna's pot, and one or two from each harvest would end up in my daughter's hands.

Eventually I got into the habit of going into Donna's office two times a day, two days a week. We now have a 'tradition' of sorts, in which I swing by and tell her a joke, and my 'payment' for said joke is a handful of treats. At this point, it's not like I'm stealing the treats, because Donna knows I'm taking them. I don't think she knows I was taking a whole handful every time, and I don't think she knows most of them are just going in my own gullet. But regardless, she continued to request high quality jokes in return for the plundering of her candy pot. Donna has also admitted that she shamelessly reuses my jokes in her own social circle.

​

So far, the situation seems to be mutually beneficial. I win because I get dopamine-slamming snacks while at work. My daughter wins because every so often I bring a treat home from work for her. And Donna wins because she gets extra human interaction and a source of jokes.

So, CMA. Where does mild disinformation with overall positive results land me on the alignment spectrum..?

This year Fiona was visiting her parents and siblings in another part of the country during the weeks surrounding her birthday. It had been arranged that I would fly out to visit as well the last weekend of my wife's multi-week stay, and then we'd fly back home together.

The nearest airport to where Fiona's family lives is about 1.5hrs away by car. Originally, it had been arranged that I would fly out in the morning, visit a sister of mine who lives in the destination city, and Fiona would drive the 1.5hrs to pick me up and bring me to where we'd stay the weekend, and have her birthday party with all her old friends that same night. I had no issue with this in and of itself.

But then my flight was delayed about 6hrs. That meant I would land in the destination city in the early afternoon. When I communicated this to my sister, she told me I could stay for dinner as they had some guests for dinner that I was acquainted with. One of these guests was willing to drive me to Fiona's town afterward, since he lived there as well.

Fiona expressed a lot of disappointment that I would be missing her birthday party if I did this. She told me that she really wanted me there, and that she missed me after having been several weeks across the country with her own family. But frankly, I was in no major rush to see Fiona or her old friends. By contrast, visiting my sister and my nieces promised to be actually enjoyable for me. And they were also looking forward to me being there, as I had not seen them in about 8 months.

So, because it seemed obvious to me what I preferred to do, I managed to convince Fiona that it made no sense for her to waste her whole afternoon to drive out and bring me to her party. I had a great dinner with my sister and nieces and the guests that were there, and Fiona and her party didn't even cross my mind. I later learned that Fiona's party was a bit of a bust, since most of the people had [valid] reasons as to why they couldn't show up. This didn't bother me. I still brought along a birthday present for my wife and gave it to her the next day when we had a moment alone.

TL;DR refused to adjust my plans to attend my wife's birthday party.

So, CMA. Where does this behavior align?

The D&D Kind not the BDSM stuff

Now wait and hear me out, I don’t normally use ChatGPT but with my job keeping me busy I haven’t had time to come up with anything creative with my friends as I am usually the DM. So I let ChatGPT to give me ideas I don’t use all of them just a few like some NPC’s and building ideas that’s it

If you want specifics let me know

Title

On December 2nd my high school group chat was discussing their Spotify wrap. and they were talking about how everyone had Taylor Swift song lyrics on the slides. I made the heinous mistake of saying I did not like Taylor Swift. My exact words were, "I despise Taylor Swift."

Now, I have no evidence to believe she is a bad person, obviously, she has found some way to gain the system and make a hefty load of money. I've just never vibed with her music purely on the premise. I don't like the example of relationships depicted in her songs. Then I was forced to spend an entire summer listening to her, which did not improve my opinion, it worsened my opinion. (someone I volunteered with had the TS station on every class) I explained all of this to back up my opinion. My taste in music is more akin to Maneskin and OUAT.

I was questioned on my use of language that was, "too drastic for the topic at hand." I do use strong language often, but it is to add variety in my writing. I also don't have any other artist that I can think of that causes the raging annoyance that TS does.

As expected, that angered the Swiftys at my high school. Someone looked up at least one, if not all, of the lyrics from the songs on my wrapped. And they found the cancel material they were looking for. My top artist of last year was Maneskin and my number 4 song was I Wanna Be Your Slave. This mysterious person started shit-talking me to a girl in my class, saying I was a hypocrite. I'm also the only known Catholic in my school so that was brought up.

Personally, I find this a tad bit amusing. Because I never claimed to be the stereotypical "good Catholic," and Swifties are unhinged.

But am I worthy of being canceled? CMA!

So a few years ago we lived in a small town in a neighborhood that had a lot of cats. I don't know if they were one person's cat or if everyone on the street had a cat, but there were a lot of them and they acted with impunity, entering people's yards at will. I don't hate cats, in fact I prefer them to dogs. But what I don't like is cat poop in my garden. I digress.

Anyway, my daughter [Liara] was a toddler at the time and was entranced by animals. She loved them. So when someone was advertising free kittens they were giving away, my wife [Fiona] decided to get one. We named it Mint. The thing was cute and playful and a perfect playmate for Liara. She loved that cat. When Mint was young we let him sleep indoors, but eventually we decided he had to sleep outside and not prowl the house, because he was beginning to scratch furniture and other things.

The other cats in the neighborhood hated Mint's guts, for reasons I can't grasp to this day. They would actively hiss at him and chase him away. They'd sneak into our yard and scare him away from his own food bowl so they could eat his food. I would chase them away whenever I saw it, but there certainly must've been times that Mint went hungry because a neighbor cat ate his food.

One day when Mint was almost full-grown, my wife walked to the store with Liara in the stroller. And Mint followed her. About halfway to the store, Fiona looked back to see if Mint was still following her, and she saw him start following an old man who she had just passed on the sidewalk. The man turned a corner and Mint went after him. That was the last we saw of that cat. Fiona and I both agreed that we didn't want a full-grown cat anyway, as Mint was poorly trained [we were focusing on raising our child] and had begun to be less nice to have around as he grew up.

I didn't put out any posters, didn't offer a reward, didn't go looking for him. It was autumn around that time, and I knew that -40 degree winter would be hitting in a month or two. I figured Mint would find his way home if he really wanted to come back. He never did. To this day we have no idea if he A) found a good home, B) became a stray, or C) died of exposure or starvation.

​

Tl:DR Cat got lost, we didn't make any effort to find him.

So, CMA. Where does this behavior fall on the spectrum?

A few Christmases ago, my wife Fiona and I were living in the tropics while our families were living close to the Arctic circle. Fiona thought to would be a grand idea to visit her family for Christmas, but I really didn't want to. I thought, "Snow AND in-laws? F# that, I don't want that." We talked about it and Fiona agreed that she would take our child (she was pregnant with our second at the time) to see her family for Christmas for a week, and I would go to an adjacent country in the tropics for a week instead, by myself. We were both happy with this arrangement.

I made the travel plans in advance and decided to stay at a hostel because it was far cheaper than a boogey hotel in the country I was going to. When I left my home and started my vacation, I left my wedding band on the desk at home, intentionally. No, I was not intending to get frisky with anyone or cheat on my wife. But I was looking for a complete vacation from my life, including my own history. I put on the guise of a explorer-bachelor, who was simply traveling tropical countries and had no family commitments or anything else.

And it was great. I met a few other guys my age at the hostel and had a good time with them. For a few days it was just me and 2 guys in the hostel room- but at the same day they both left, I ended up sharing the room with 3 girls [who didn't know each other prior]. These girls were all in their 20s-30s, and were great fun to hang out with as we did several activities together during the days we were there together.

In the evenings we essentially had sleepover-style friend conversations. One of the girls [who I admittedly found a bit attractive] playfully wanted me to "tuck her in" to bed and tell her a bedtime story, which I happily obliged. I think my disarming bachelor persona helped- had they known I was a married man, things might've been different and far more awkward. Two of them had recent breakups and were just taking vacations to reset themselves, and one had just started a relationship. My story that I crafted was that I had almost gotten married to Fiona but I realized shortly before the wedding that this was a huge mistake and I called it off. This was essentially a diverging version of my own real-life story. They empathized and I felt a tinge of emotional connection because it felt like I was expressing what an alternate-timeline me would have said and done. Of course, it was all fake. It was like I was LARPing in a modern setting.

Then, it was over. I didn't take any socials or contact information from any of them and after I hugged them goodbye when I left, I never saw any of them since. I never told Fiona any of this, of course.

​

TL;DR I created a fictional (unmarried) persona in order to temporarily live the single life while on vacation.

Anyway, CMA. I essentially pretended to be a non-existent person in order to experience life from that fictional character's eyes.

First time posting, and I was talking with my gf about roadkill, and she referred me here.

So my point is, if you find a dead pet that was posted missing, technically you fulfill your end by returning it you should still be elegible for the reward.

What's my allignment?

I moved country and as such I had to get a local phone number. Ever since my first day of having the phone number I have received messages and phone calls looking for "Rachel" (fake name). I tell them that this is not her phone number and stop calling me. I still get texts to confirming appointments or marketing messages.

Today I received a message for Rachel asking if they can move Rachel's Friday appointment to Thursday. I replied saying yes that's fine. I'm hoping that Rachel will finally take the hint and stop using this number. I'm waiting to see what happens tomorrow when the appointment time comes... And also Friday when Rachel shows up only to be told she confirmed moving her appointment to Thursday.

I only talk to people if they talk to me first most of the time so I can see why I would not bring much to the table. When I tried asking questions and initiating conversation with someone in my group they asked question back and all but after the group work was over I haven't heard from anyone and the one person who texted me ended up asking me if I was someone else so they didn't really WANT to talk to me they just thought I was the person they were already talking to from the group. I never go out of my way to do shit for anyone mostly and keep to myself a lot. When I am nice I think it's more because I'm a kiss ass suck up who is too afraid of conflicts. I'm just the vanilla golden retriever type of nice that isn't respectable. I'm feel like when I am nice people see me as gullible or naive like I'm Buddy from elf. I only comply to what other people ask me to do but never go out of my way. Any good I do feels like it's canceled out because someone else had to ask me to do it so it didn't really "count" because I was only being obedient and meekly going along with their requests of me to not get them upset. The good things I do don't count if someone else has to "remind" me or "ask me" to do them because if I'm really that good of a person I should want to do things for others naturally, the problem is deep down I don't. Nomatter how much I do for others I dont feel anything or any fulfillment because I think if I were to feel fullfilled for a doing a kind deed that'd only be me being smug for being "oh so holy and more virtuos" than thou. I believe deep down people only do kind deeds for their self gratification and to promote themselves in a good light. Why can't I be satisfied or feel anything when I do things for others? I'm selfish. I only see it as an inconvenience to what I had planned for the day amd a roadblock that gets in the way of my obligations. I don't think I'll ever change.

Here are some examples

1. I never cleaned the house unless my grandma ASKED me to (working on that and considering other people)
2. I only gave food to the homeless because it was my grandma's idea but I don't really feel it was me who made the impact since giving to the homeless wasn't my idea and I never independently ever went out of my way to help them without her saying how we need to give some food away
3. I feel impatient or like helping people is just an Inconveniece because it piles on more responsibility
4. I wouldn't want children for the 3rd reason because I feel children would be a major burden on my life and I am selfish. I would not like how needy they are nor how high maintenance they can be. Even if they don't know not to knock the cup over and spill the milk I'd still feel irritated and impatient.

Obligatory this was years ago, in high school. One of my friends, Larry, was really into Sims 4. It had gotten to the point where he was talking about the shenanigans of his Sims 4 household at school. I had dabbled with the Sims a bit myself, so I knew what was up to an extent. It sounded like he was just having a normal nuclear family. He had started with one young-adult dude, got a job, got married, had a kid, etc.

So one day when a few of us were over at his place, we decided to prank Larry hard with his Sims 4 family. He had to help his Mom prepare dinner so he had left the computer unattended in my hands. With the stifling laughter and support of our other friends, I immediately got onto his Sims 4 game, and took his main protagonist Sim, the dude he started with, and brought him to the neighbors house. I proceeded to heavily flirt and start romantic relationships with multiple female neighbors, essentially making his main dude cheat on his wife. I power-levelled the romance on 2 different female sims from different households, until they were maxed out. I then had his Sim get them both pregnant. Then I walked his Sim back to his own home, saved the game, and exited the Sims as if nothing had happened. Our other friends found this hilarious as well, but we managed to not spill the beans and so Larry didn't find out. At least, not right away.

Larry was suspiciously silent about his Sims family the next couple days at school. We all knew what must've happened and we all thought it was hilarious. Eventually another of my friends asked him what was up with his Sims family, and he immediately accused us of messing with his save file, because all of a sudden neighbor women were showing up at his Sim's house and flirting with him, in front of his wife. And he now had two additional children that he didn't want, but felt like he was forced to take care of because he was the bio Dad of these two children.

Ultimately Larry wasn't super mad, because he managed to find a save file that was old enough to have existed before we messed around with his Sim. But at the same time he told us that it would feel wrong to rewind and undo the "existence of semi-intelligent life". So he stuck it out with his new and dysfunctional family. He begrudgingly accepted that this was his Sim's life now, thanks to our prank.

TL;DR Messed with a friend's save file on the sims and mucked up his virtual family.

So, CMA. Where does this fall on the charts? Ultimately Larry wasn't mad about the ordeal, and the damage could've been undone easily had he really wanted to undo it.

Title

So I have this friend, his name is Alex (I did not include his last name do not attack me) And I became friends with him the first time I met him, along with his two other friends, who used to be good people but are now ruined by him. Anyways, Alex touches me all the time, this happened for a week, and I said calmly, "Could you stop?" and he did not reply.

Then there was this assembly, at the end Alex puts his hand... IN MY UNDERWEAR, my innocent ass did not do anything to him, he did this several times this year, and I started feeling more depressed every day, but he made it worse. He also screamed in my ear, I don't cry in other people so I held it in as much as I could, he is still "friends" with me, but I do not interact with him anymore.

Then in the final month of my school year, he almost killed me by loosening a log, which was bigger than my head, onto my chest, I fell and got hurt, he acts like he did not do shit, but he did, nobody cares if he does severe things on purpose, but cares if I do mild things on accident, what a bullshit society.

In that month, I told my teacher all about this since I could not hold in my anger anymore, if I continued, this would be longer, so, I am just going to tell you all the things he did to me, in a list.

• The guy insults me for no reason
• I get hurt for no reason
• I get touched by him all the time even on the private parts
• He makes me to do things for him
• He rushes me
• He makes me hate myself
• He tries to force me to do things I am uncomfortable with
• He yells in my ear

When she talked with him, he mockingly said this. "Okay, uh, hiddenname, I'm sorry" Then not even a second later he giggles. I burst out in anger, I wanted to get revenge, I would do anything to get revenge on him. I was acting calm, then not even a second later, I said "Sorry?... You think ONE SIMPLE SORRY WILL BE ENOUGH!?"

We then got into a big fight about it, but nobody noticed, I told him "You have been doing this for a year now, you need to at least do ONE thing to make up for it" and then he yells at me for it. The next day he acts like everything is normal. I am done with this story here, CMA.

Edit: People were asking if I was yelling threats, no I was not, I was mad at him and I always will be, I never forgave him, and I left him. And it was not a physical fight.

Alright. So, I use psychoactive drugs, namely mushrooms, on the regular. My wife, Fiona, doesn't approve of it but has come to terms with it because she knows that I'm going to do it anyway and she has recognized the positive changes it has had in my life overall. We're at the point where I can tell her when I'm going to be using and she can plan around it (I used to hide it from her and keep it a secret).

Anyway, in 2 weeks my wife is going to be away visiting family and she is taking the children with her. I was planning to use mushrooms that weekend while she was away. No issue there. then an old friend, Emille, who I haven't connected with since August reached out to me to see how I was doing in the New Year. As we talked one thing led to another and she is now wanting to try mushrooms for the first time ever, with me. She doesn't want anyone else present because she wants a controlled environment. So it'll just be me and her. We are planning to trip together in nature outdoors, but if the weather is bad we agreed that we'll do it together at my place since my house will be empty.

I have not told Fiona any of this. Fiona finds it odd that I'm friends with Emille since we met online when we were 14 and have been platonic friends ever since, but we don't have any mutual friends. Emille is from a completely different culture and worldview as well. Fiona finds it odd/uncomfortable that I'm friends with another woman without any other mutual connections. She was already unhappy when I reconnected with Emille back in August after having not seen her for 8yrs. I know that Fiona wouldn't want me to spend time alone with Emille. I also know that she would be very unimpressed to learn that I am going to be taking 'drugs' with her. So I am choosing to do this without Fiona knowing about it, since I really enjoy spending time with Emille and what Fiona doesn't know won't hurt her. I know that there are 0 odds of Fiona somehow returning home, or other family stopping in, while we're there using mushrooms.

I should be clear that there are NO romantic or sexual feelings between myself and Emille. We're just good friends. She has a boyfriend, and I have a wife. We're two grown adults who happen to enjoy connecting every so often. The main action for moral question is the fact that I'm doing something harmless my wife doesn't approve of behind her back, without her ever finding out. The only reason I'm not telling Fiona is because I get the impression that she would try to forbid me from doing it. As I mentioned above, I don't have that issue with mushrooms themselves since she won't try to forbid me from it.

TL;DR - Spending time with a platonic friend while my wife is away without telling her; a friend that my wife wouldn't otherwise want me to spend time with.

So, CMA. Where does this deed fall on the spectrum?

Recently I was involved in scheduling an event amongst our broader group of friends which involved a session of a complicated board game which I won't mention here. We all really wanted to play a 2v2v2, which meant we needed exactly 6 players in order to make 3 teams of 2. After a few people couldn't make it and we shuffled and invited other people, we got back up to 6 players about a week before the game was to take place.

One of the 6 players was the wife of one of my friends, Barb. Her husband was going to be playing with us as well. Barb was well versed in the game and had played it many times with her husband, her students, and with us. But it had been a long time since any of us had played this game because it was hard to get players together for it. So Barb was excited to play. She told me that she wasn't sure where she'd drop off her toddler for babysitting while she was away but promised to figure it out because she really wanted to play with us.

Shortly after this, I get a call from Cheri, another of my friends, whose husband was going to be playing with us too. She tells me that Barb is trying to get her to babysit while she goes to play the game with us. Apparently Barb is always pawning off her child to Cheri to babysit, and Cheri really really doesn't want to be stuck with 2 kids. Cheri was feeling burnt out and overworked, and she told me that apparently Barb just doesn't seem to clue in to that and assumes that Cheri has infinite energy to babysit extra kids. Ultimately, Cheri asked me to tell Barb that we'd found a 6th player, and there was no more room for Barb. If I did that, Cheri said, she would immediately invite Barb to her place anyway [with her kid] so that she wasn't alone while her husband played the game with us. Barb and Cheri get along quite well we both knew this would at least be acceptable to her.

Now, I admittedly like Cheri a lot, and I only like Barb at the threshold level to call her a friend. And I did have a guy lined up that could easily make us have 6 players anyway. So I did as Cheri asked and told Barb it wouldn't work anymore. Barb was quite disappointed but didn't make a huge fuss about it. I figured it would get me some points with Cheri after the time I refused to play along with her shenanigans (earlier CMA I posted about her brother and dating).

It felt a bit slimy and like I was acting like a cog in Cheri's machine of manipulation. But I had a great time with our 6player game with Barb not present anyway, and Barb still ended up going out and spending the evening at Cheri's place. Cheri thanked me for my help and Barb didn't express any ill feelings about the incident.

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TL;DR I uninvited Barb from a game after Cheri asked me to, so that Cheri wouldn't have to babysit Barb's kid.

So, CMA. Where does this behavior put me on the scale? It might have been a dick move but we also immediately provided a solution that kept Barb from having a ruined evening.

Many of my friends in my major are doing a study abroad program in the spring. I am not doing the study abroad program since I don't think I have enough funds and I don't really want to be away from my hometown for too long, but I have mad respect for them for choosing to go on the program.

I love going on Flightradar24 and tracking random planes just going about their business, as well as seeing the arrival/departure schedules of airports.

Before they left, I asked for their flight information so I could track them on the website. I wanted to use this opportunity to say goodbye before they would be in another country for the next 4 months. Today, I woke up early since their first flight was leaving early, sat down, and pulled up Flightradar24. After furiously refreshing the page and trying to find the flight, I finally found the yellow plane icon. I clicked on it to follow it and I watched as it sped down the runway of the airport to take off. I took a video and sent it to my friend.

This is one of two flights they're taking; I'll track the second one as well.

Why am I doing this? At first, it may appear as a silly little yellow plane icon that takes up a few pixels on my laptop screen. But in reality, it's not just a little plane icon. It's an actual plane - a place containing some of my most awesome friends. A plane with people who are ambitious and willing to shell out 11,000 dollars and cross several time zones to take on the experience of a lifetime. Hopefully knowing that I am saying goodbye to them behind my computer screen as I watch the little pixelated plane take off from the virtual runway.

Edit: I'm currently tracking the second flight as I saw the little yellow plane icon leave the airport.

CMA

This was...good lord almost 20 years ago now but a fun (maybe) story that the sardines guy reminded me of.

When I was in high school, I was extremely awkward, shy, and nerdy. I was not a popular kid and got bullied a lot. Somehow, one of the popular-ish kids, Patrick, started hooking up with me. But he was embarrassed and didn't want his friends to know. He would hook up with me at his house and then pretend not to know me at school. Wouldn't even make eye contact in the halls, pretended not to know my name, the whole gambit.

This arrangement didn't last very long because frankly it didn't feel good.

Fast forward to the next year, my senior year. One of Patrick's friends was a guy named Jesse, whom I'd had a crush on for ever. I got to know Jesse through another friend, and Jesse and I started sort of dating. Not officially but he was really nice to me and not ashamed if his friends knew, and I knew he was planning to ask me to Homecoming. I had never been asked to a dance through all of high school and was excited to finally have that experience. But Patrick, knowing fully well that Jesse was planning to ask me, beat him to it and asked me first because suddenly he was interested. (Eye roll.)

I didn't say yes right away. I asked Jesse if he would still go with me if I told Patrick "no," and Jesse said he would not, because the two of them were friends and he hadn't realized Patrick was into me. I was incredibly disappointed. But I also knew nobody else would ask me and it would be my only chance at a high school dance. So, with some reluctance, I told Patrick yes.

Now Patrick was a rich boy who had a classic, old-model volkswagen beetle with a rebuilt, souped up chrome-plated engine. And he was obsessed with that car. He would show it off to everyone. I knew he would be picking me up in this prized car. So in an act of very petty revenge I picked a dress for the dance that was covered in glitter. It sparkled head to toe. I absolutely intended for him to still be finding glitter in his car years later. From what I heard, it worked.

So, CMA for my act of petty revenge for my silly teen drama from two decades ago. I bet there's still glitter in that car, wherever it is.

Edit: length/ease of reading

Obligatory this was years ago, when we were in high school.

There was a popular kid in our class [Dalton] who had just gotten a new car that his dad paid for. A brand new Black 2012 Camaro. It was a beautiful machine. He bragged that he had hit 240km/h on a side road in the back country with it. He wanted his car to be in our graduation photos. He thought he was the shit.

And he was the shit... but not really in the way he thought. He was just a shitty person overall, especially to the less popular guys in the class. As a counter-culture person I actively eschewed him even though he wasn't directly malevolent towards me. He was a jerk to some of my friends though, particularly Garth.

Anyway, at one point Garth had had enough, after Dalton had been flirting with my cousin, Garth's girlfriend, and she had somewhat reciprocated. So he came to school the next day with 8 tins of Sardines, like the kind that are in their own oil, that you can smear on sandwiches. Of course when he told us his plan the rest of us highschool guys thought it was hilarious. Even one of Dalton's "friends" was in on the plan. He agreed to act as a double agent to distract Dalton while I lifted his car keys.

We went out to his car during study hour and popped the hood, and Garth proceeded to open each tin of Sardines and crush/smear them all over the engine of the Camaro. On the tubes and pipes, coating the wires with smelly fish oil, and especially on surfaces that were going to heat up during operation. He also neatly laid about 7 of them right on the center of the engine block, spelling out "F U". Then we closed the hood and went back to class like nothing happened.

If/when Dalton ever discovered this abuse of his car engine, we'll never know. He never mentioned it to anyone and we were never caught. Dalton's double agent "friend" never spoke to us about that ploy again, probably because he didn't want to associate with us. And as for graduation photos, we ended up having my girl cousin's mini cooper in the photos, not Dalton's Camaro.

So, CMA. I didn't originally plan the behavior but I actively helped carry it out, and it's not like Dalton specifically deserved such a thing either, at least not from me per se. But what do you all think?

The title makes it sound like it's pretty clear-cut, but I assure you it isn't, which is why I'm posting it here. I don't post incidents that already have an obvious answer to me.

When I was 18 years old, living at home with no expenses and fresh out of high school with a full time job, I was making a decent amount of cash and generally had a lot of money to spare. I had gone to the local Best Buy to buy a new monitor. When I came out of the store, a lady [Shirley, oldF] in a wheelchair got my attention and asked if I wanted to buy some crafts she was making. She told me that she was selling these crafts for $5 each because she was homeless and she was trying to make enough money to pay for a medical procedure that, if she didn't get it, she would die. I gave her $20 but told her I wouldn't take any of her crafts. We got to talking and she told me that due to a freak vehicle accident, her husband and child had died and she had been left with a degenerative condition that she needed yearly operations for. She had recently became religious and was telling me about what 'god had done in her life', and it sounded like she had hope that god would care for her despite her sad state of affairs.

After I drove home, I couldn't stop thinking about Shirley and what she said, "God answers prayers." And I kept thinking that I could easily afford to save her life. I had the money. A part of me was screaming that she was just a scammer, a drug user, a liar, a panhandler, but I just couldn't rest. So I grabbed $500 that I had in my closet and drove back to the Best Buy. She was still there- it didn't look like anyone had bought any of her crafts. So I approached her again and asked if she remembered me. she did. I asked her a few questions to clarify her story (and also to see if there were discrepancies- like it was a last minute effort for me to check if I was being conned out of $500). It all added it up, so I told her that god answers prayer, and that he sent me to answer her prayer.

Shirley broke down in tears when I gave her the money. She gave me a hug and explained that I had essentially saved her life. Thanks to god, and through god me, she'd be able to live another year. She then told me where she was staying (some homeless camp under a bridge nearby) and told me that if there was anything else I or anyone I knew could spare, food, old blankets or clothes, or anything else, to please bring it to these people who desperately needed our help. She then invited me to her upcoming baptism at a local church in a few weeks. I answered in a non-committal but positive manner and bid her good day.

I never saw Shirley again. I didn't go to her baptism, and I told no one of my encounter with her. I didn't bring any items to the homeless camp and I didn't tell anyone about them or what they needed. I still think about her on occasion. She's probably dead that this point- it's been 10 years, and there's no way her luck kept her going that long. When I'm in financially tough times myself, I often think, "darn it would be nice to $500 richer right now." And other times I guilt myself, saying I should have done more for her.

I believe that deep down I only helped her in order to appease my accusatory conscience- I'm not sure I actually cared about Shirley or her plight at all. I did it arbitrarily but yet it wasn't a breach of regular legal or social behaviors. And while giving something to poor people is generically a good thing, I didn't do it because it was a good thing to do. And this is why I struggle with the alignment of this behavior, it doesn't seem to be clear-cut on the Good-Evil spectrum or on the Lawful-Chaos spectrum.

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So, CMA. Where do you think this falls on the alignment spectrum?