Suppose there actually were perfectly good reasons for the nail to be there? Like, taking it at the most literal level, taking it out would create an open wound with a lot of blood loss, etc., and would make things a lot worse in the short run?

Sometimes people haven't thought about or actually tried the obvious solutions, and sometimes they have and, for whatever reason, feel as though they're worse than putting up with the problem. "The situation sucks but it's still a local optimum, so just let me vent and listen without offering solutions."

My late wife would insist all the time that "Mr. Fixit is not welcome" because she thought (not without reason) that letting me act would have a good chance of making things worse than they already were.

I think it was also a matter of expectations. Should students have expected that, to properly get through a university course, they should have gone through a set of lectures that were not part of any prerequisite course? It should have been a project that a complete beginner to ML could have learned how to do over the semester. I feel as though you were in the position of someone who already knew (some) Spanish taking a Spanish 101 class and being disappointed that the other people who were on a group project with you were beginners - of course they're beginners, that's why they're taking the class in the first place!

The obvious example of a "teme" is a self-replicating computer virus, but do we really need a new word for that?

It makes me want to find an AI deepfake of his voice to sing this.

My late wife in particular thought my dancing was bad, which is why I brought it up; I mentioned the term "dad dancing" to her and she thought it was an appropriate description. (She happened to be nine years younger than I was.)

This looks like either harsh sarcasm or trolling, and the "piece" by that title does not appear to exist; furthermore, my understanding is that "redpill ideology" has little to say on the subject of hugs in particular.

And the point about consent has been addressed elsewhere in the comments:

(A norm in which Alexis explicitly checks in because they know Bryce is acclimating makes a lot of sense, but a general norm in which you're expected to secure verbal consent for casual touch is actually super bad in ways that I've spelled out a bunch of other times and probably won't rehash here. Its badness unfortunately hasn't stopped (especially left-leaning parts of) our culture from driving pretty hard in that direction, leading to our present epidemic of chronic undertouch (and downstream effects like homophobia and increased emotional labor within romantic relationships and teenage depression, etc etc etc.))

Seconded.

My model is that the primary service the Cool Bars provide is gatekeeping, so if you're not the kind of person big spenders want to be seen with (pretty girls and impressive men) it's going to be a hassle.

It probably works better if the people you're trying to hook up with aren't total strangers - consider a high school dance, or a college frat party...

If you don't like alcohol but can act disinhibited anyway, does that work too? (Also there's the issue of whether your partner is too intoxicated to give consent...)