An "in-law suite" is different from renting a room. It generally has its own entrance, and a devoted kitchen and bathroom. It's an entire 1-bedroom apartment built into the house or property (often above a garage, for example).
And it's not slang, it's a term that's been used since the early 1900s, and as the term suggests, it has historically been used to be able to care for elderly parents (so they can maintain their independence while still living with family). It's not like you can sell an in-law suite separately, and selling one's house while a parent doesn't need that and expecting to not only buy another house and having one available with an in-law suite when a parent does need it is a pretty extreme expectation. So it really does come down to rent the room or leave it empty.
And plenty of people want that kind of temporary rental, if they don't want to be tied to a particular spot for long or don't want the responsibility of owning.
In college I had a guy friend (I'm a guy, both of us straight) who I'd regularly go to breakfast with, and he always paid because I was very poor, he made plenty, and he wanted company for breakfast. I regularly tried to pay and he waved me off. I think he knew that if we went back and forth, we'd go to breakfast a lot less because I wouldn't be able to afford it.
I'm 42 and it has worked out pretty well so far, honestly.
I joined the military, got good reviews (called "marks" for us), and tested well when I tried. Now I make good money, have the support of a lot of people in different departments and largely able to work on the projects I want, have gotten my #1 pick for station every time I have had to transfer, and will be retiring in 4 years with a bunch of ties to the community to keep me involved with things I enjoy after.
I get a lot of this is luck, and privilege (e.g. not everybody can join the military), and other factors. And regardless how hard I worked, many things ended up being popularity contests, so I missed some opportunties that way. But at no point did I feel like being nice and hardworking worked anything but in my own favor.
Pretty sure the ones at my work (only by the higher-ups and the people responsible for ordering stuff) don't have presets. So since my desk was just outside my boss' boss' door, whenever he was out I would pop in and move his desk halfway up. That way, every single time he walked in to use his desk, he'd had to move it whether he wanted to stand or sit.
I didn't dislike him or anything. I (and every person I told to do it when they went into his office) just thought it was funny.
This is an open ended attempt (with some frustration) to try to under why members of the community do certain things.
I am fine with not commenting in women-only spaces, but that is very much not what OP is trying to do. OP is venting and using a rhetorical question they don't seem to particularly want an answer to. Is that "requesting support?" Does that extend to emotional/moral support?
I think if the OP is complaining about not following the rules and spirit of a community when posting, it seems appropriate to point out if they are violating the rules (and spirit) of the community they post it in.
Look, I'm not about to post comments myself in those places, but happening upon one recently after a previous post like this, I noticed how poorly the rule was displayed.
Each post should have a stickied mod comment at the top stating commenting is for women only. Otherwise it's easy not to notice what community the post is in that you're responding to, especially on mobile.
You can expect people to know the rules of any community before posting, or take the time to look, or whatever, but the only person you're hurting is yourself for having those expectations.
If your community is public, the onus is on you (or rather, the mods of the community) to make it as clear as possible what the rules are, if they exclude people or go beyond "be civil."
I had to explain to people that I relaxed after a few drinks because the more I drank, the less was going on in my mind. It's like one of those annoying user interfaces that pulls up a description box every time you mouseover anything, except it's analyzing things or hypothesizing about stuff, or going down some rabbithole hased on something somebody said. All while 1-3 songs are going on in my head.
I've managed to quiet most of it down as I've aged (and realized that exhaustion, which was my constant state, horribly exascerbated the issue). But my mind was exhausting to be in, so being out and overstimulated without something to dampen the inner voice was torture.
If they've baked cookies with you, you tell them the daddy gives some of the ingredients, the mommy gives some of the ingredients, and then the mommy is like the oven, and makes a baby over 9 months in her belly.
There were no further questions for years, and my kids knew that they came from mommy and daddy, and that they grew in mommy's belly. The older they get, the more specifics they get, and if they're old enough to ask a specific question, they're old enough to get a specific answer.
a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,
And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn't moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially "downsizing" to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?
Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young'uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren't in a position to buy a house and wouldn't want to.
This whole "no good landlords" reeks of the same mentality as "no good lawyers." Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.
Held it a loooong time.