Euchlid

And these are mostly the subtle stares we might pick up on.
When my wife (who has nil tattoos) are out and I may be walking ahead, she sees so many people cranking their necks and literally stop to stare. She can't believe it.
On another note but, we took our kids to a music concert some time back one evening. All the other stiff parents in their usual shirts, ties and lovely attire...I'm in my usual jeans, t shirts and thongs.
The following day at the school...you know, some mother had the audacity to say to my wife...your poor kids. When my wife asked what the fuck she was talking about, she says...don't you feel ashamed on the bad influence your husband has on your children?
Fuck, didn't that bitch cop a serve from the Mrs.

This might be too political for this site? But here goes. In my opinion/experience, PUA culture is bad news for everybody involved. It looks like you still have some detoxing to do. Try thinking of your interactions with women as something other than transaction-based, to start. You also don't know what a person may have experienced to cause him or her to "lash out" at light touch from a stranger. I wish you luck.
Thanks to everybody on here for helping to keep this a good space for women, by the way...
Because I think we need a picture of something nice right about now, here's a backpiece by Forrest Cavacco that I'm currently drooling over:

Edit: sorry it's so huge...

I just wanted to address what you said above.
I don't like to share too much about my personal life, but I will on this occasion. I suffer from a mental illness, but am a fully functioning person who gets up and goes to work every day, shares a smile and laugh with collegues, lifts weights at the gym, and spends a lot of time with my friends. Not many people know about my mental struggles, and those that do it's only because I have told them. Mentally ill people generally don't look sick (yes there are cases where it's apparent someone isn't well by their actions). When we are ill we don't have a runny nose, or a cough. When I am sick, and when I am well, I still don't like to be touched by strangers.
Mental illness is surprisingly common. It still has a stigma attached to it, and I would bet money on the people who you think are mentally and emotionally stable, that there are a few of them who are sufferers, but you wouldn't pick it. I guess what I'm trying to say, is don't be so casual with flippant remarks regarding the mental health of people. You can't judge how they are doing mentally on whether they lash out at being touched by strangers. That is stupid.

May I add .02$
Jesus Mick you had her at hello lol.
My tattoos get grabbed somewhat frequently by both men and women. I remember being in mexico at a hotel pool and this dude was with his girlfriend/wife wouldn't/ couldn't get his damn hands off my arm. It FREAKED ME OUT hard, we have reached a point where tattoos aren't on 1% of the population and I see them on so many damn people. I've also had it happen at the gym... please don't touch me at the gym.
I agree that touching to establish a sexual boundary is natural in human interaction, but I find that using a tattoo as an excuse to touch a woman is so damn creepy.
I never had the urge to touch another person's tattoos. I have seen plenty of guys in bars touching/rubbing a girls tattoos and the reaction is always that they are sketched out hard.
Change the situation from tattoos to something anything else and you will kinda see how creepy it is. She has the biggest butt I just wanna go up and start touching it as I introduce myself. I know that may be an absurd leap in the situation, but part of me feels like you know better and know what you are doing.

@Pugilist has a story about how when she was getting her back worked on I asked Stephanie about tebori, because she's getting her back done by Shinji, and Steph then proceeded with an impromptu tebori demonstration with a machine on Pugilist's kidneys. I still haven't been forgiven for that one.

Machine. At one point @DJDeepFried stopped by to visit and asked Horitomo, "So just machine today, no Tebori?" Horitomo looked at me and said, "You want Tebori?" with a little grin... I was like, "Nah, I'm good!" I would have gone either way, he chose machine and I am more than happy with that.

Here a li'l photoessay of our venture to State of Grace. Still pretty jel I didn't get a tattoo or even a lousy T-shirt but the wee one did.


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@idyllsend Obviously I'm going to Dave because he makes really great tattoos, but I have to admit that it's a really nice bonus that the shop is about twenty minutes away by public transportation. I really like travelling for tattoos, but when you figure in travel costs, hotels, restaurants, having to take time off work, etc., it's a really massive commitment beyond just getting the tattoo, which is a pretty serious commitment by itself for large work.
@Euchild There are so many great ones!

It was definitely scary at first, and it's still scary, but I've pretty much just been doing bouldering so far, and you're never TOO far off the ground in bouldering, so I am slowly getting used to it. I might try to learn a bit about top-roping soon, though, because I've been on a couple of climbing dates with a cute Swede who is keen to teach me :cool:

@Graeme That's rad that Dave is doing your back, he did my friend Corey's leg about 9 years ago.
I think a lot of people don't realise the awesome tattooing talent that exists up here in Canada!

My airline doesn't allow any visible tattoos either. When I was hired we didn't have a skirt, only pants. So I wore pants and long sleeve shirts. Then when we got skirts I lobbied for opaque black stockings, and was finally allowed. Level 80 denier is what covers my calf the best, but in the last year I've been wearing compression stockings underneath my thinner black ones. Unfortunately they don't make compression hose opaque enough to cover my calf (and now thigh) tattoo so if I want to wear compression hose I wear two layers. I could just go back to wearing the pants, but I like the skirt better!

it only becomes awkward when you have close friends who bitch openly to you ( or on social media) about having no money ever, or being in trouble financially (like worrying how to pay for rent certain months) and then they go and get tattoos (or piercings, or buy whatever other material things). My thoughts are…. perhaps you should save up some money so every other month you're not putting yourself in the same situation. Also, having the cash piggy bank for tattoos means you also have a cash back up supply for emergencies (like helping your kid repay his car, etc).
Especially when these are pals I've helped out financially in a bind…… I don't expect to be paid back, it just sucks to see skewed priorities months in a row.

That's really nice that you dipped into the tattoo piggy bank to help out your son.
I have an actual piggy bank (well, it's a Chinese lucky cat bank), when I get a pretty good paycheque I go and take out 100$ or something and stash it in there, if I try to mentally compartmentalize my savings into tattoos, and other stuff I get lost, so having tangible cash for tattoos is a much better way for me to save up. When I had my last sleeve done I asked for gift certificates from the shop for my birthday, it was awesome how a bunch of my friends pooled together for a gift :)
As for my husband and I, we keep our finances mostly separate so we save for our tattoos independently of each other. That's why I want to get most of my legs done before we have kids, then I'm sure we'll actually need to budget for things haha. Sometimes I forget how easy two incomes no kids is. Props to all you guys with kids and continuing tattoo projects.

Dave Cummings at PSC Tattoo. It's going to be what @BrianH said above. Or maybe a tiger, possibly fighting a snake. We'll see.

So, funny story.
I'm a flight attendant, and the other day a former teenybopper/now still performing (who knew?!) singer was on my flight, I asked him if he was going to play a show, and he told me my glasses were cute, and that I was very cute.
Which cracked me up. I didn't have the heart to tell him that my little sister used to like his kind of music, while I was the angsty teen who loathed it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.
lol. At least he was nice. So for those who had crushes on a young Aaron Carter, he apparently still performs, and has the hots for glasses.

That's a pretty douchey interpretation of "being a close friend".

My airline doesn't allow any visible tattoos either. When I was hired we didn't have a skirt, only pants. So I wore pants and long sleeve shirts. Then when we got skirts I lobbied for opaque black stockings, and was finally allowed. Level 80 denier is what covers my calf the best, but in the last year I've been wearing compression stockings underneath my thinner black ones. Unfortunately they don't make compression hose opaque enough to cover my calf (and now thigh) tattoo so if I want to wear compression hose I wear two layers. I could just go back to wearing the pants, but I like the skirt better!

@Graeme HI DEF COUPONS
obviously worth it.
I usually tell people I spend less than 100$ on hair and makeup per year (respectively). Also, I work hard and make pretty good money so whatever!

@Graeme HI DEF COUPONS
obviously worth it.
I usually tell people I spend less than 100$ on hair and makeup per year (respectively). Also, I work hard and make pretty good money so whatever!

When did "selfish" become the new catchcry for living your life how you choose and doing things you love?
I'm apparently very selfish for choosing not to have children and spending all my money on me, and was also labelled selfish when I had my motorbike too (OMG you'll fall off and DIE! So selfish!)
People need to live and let live, and mind their own damn business.

@Graeme HI DEF COUPONS
obviously worth it.
I usually tell people I spend less than 100$ on hair and makeup per year (respectively). Also, I work hard and make pretty good money so whatever!

That's really nice that you dipped into the tattoo piggy bank to help out your son.
I have an actual piggy bank (well, it's a Chinese lucky cat bank), when I get a pretty good paycheque I go and take out 100$ or something and stash it in there, if I try to mentally compartmentalize my savings into tattoos, and other stuff I get lost, so having tangible cash for tattoos is a much better way for me to save up. When I had my last sleeve done I asked for gift certificates from the shop for my birthday, it was awesome how a bunch of my friends pooled together for a gift :)
As for my husband and I, we keep our finances mostly separate so we save for our tattoos independently of each other. That's why I want to get most of my legs done before we have kids, then I'm sure we'll actually need to budget for things haha. Sometimes I forget how easy two incomes no kids is. Props to all you guys with kids and continuing tattoo projects.

Tegaderm worked great on my calf tattoos.

The final dead skin peel on some parts of the manta rays took a long time, but that had nothing to do with tegaderm. I think in general the skin in between the calf and ankle tends to shed slower, plus some heavy black areas in the tattoo.

I had a mate a while back now bust my balls because of the extent I have myself tattooed, saying he could never justify the amount of $ spent for such a selfish interest.
It kinda blew me away a bit, & the only reason I engaged the conversation is because we grew up together.
A) you don't know how much I spend, you only guesstimate going by average "shop hours"
B) I don't go out pissing my money against the wall
C) my family are provided for, kids are schooled, clothed, fed, dance, swimming, martial arts, piano, violin, orchestra, swimming ...the list goes on...all paid for.
Isn't it fucked how people feel they have the right to call you out on your priorities when all they see is what they see sitting in front of them.
It's like another dude I know said riding a motorcycle is a selfish mode of transport. Like, WTF? How can that be selfish when my 11 & 9 year olds and Mrs love riding with me.
I think we only feel guilty sometimes because it's pushed upon us by fuckers who should be looking in their own back yard before commenting on ours.