Existing Offline

Something I have come to realize very recently is I just don’t feel motivated to play games for the most part. A large part of playing games and the games I was playing was to exist and I suppose I actually want to exist in the physical realm. I didn’t want to exist for pretty much my entire life.

I rejected my body; even thinking about being present physically resulted in stress. I could exist in the computer, though. I could be a woman or an ungendered thing and it felt right and I really did not apply any sort of criticality to the situation. It’s hard to look at your tools of escape with any sort of depth. The fear that they’d stop being effective is ever present. Don’t mess with what is happening, you’re still surviving.

I finally want to exist and that means life things: being seen, socializing, existing in a space. Those things were extremely stressful for me before. Of course now existence is sort of.. not. With the pandemic and the current social revolution the world I always rejected doesn’t exist and I’m really unsure how to find a place in the current one.

This whole ordeal might be why I was able to reach such a realization. It’s safe like a long distance relationship. An unrealistic, ephemeral situation wrapped in pretense. I can start to exist because existence itself doesn’t so it’s safe. Wanting something you can’t have is easy. There remains no reason to become paranoid; no fears to contemplate or wrestle with.

Still, it makes for some empty nights.