nyquildotorg, 
I've seen a larger number of exasperated people bitching about GIMP recently, to which I offer this advice:
Photopea is truly excellent and will likely cause you much less frustration and hassle.
It's browser-based, but is installable as a PWA, and can do anything I've ever found myself needing to do in GIMP.
I was a GIMP user since the very first release, even using it on projects I did for Adobe*, but haven't used it in 3 years now after finding Photopea.
*: I relished leaving the default "created in GIMP" metadata on all the assets I delivered.