PERSONAL

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Bitter Old Man Rant

10 months ago1,798 words

I'm old and lonely and lumpy and sad, so here's some probably embarrassing ranting about that to relieve some of the stress my demons are causing me today.

I've been wondering lately what the purpose of this blog is. Is it a way to deliver games dev news for the benefit of people interested in my games? Or is it a personal form of expression, a place where I can come to reap the benefits associated with journalling?

I suppose I've always tried to use it for both, which is... well, I was going to say it's silly, that I shouldn't do that, but my games dev and mental health are so intertwined that whenever I've tried in the past to focus spaces on just talking about one, the other always ends up seeping in.

I keep wondering about joining some blogging/journalling site, or creating one, for the sake of maybe belonging in a community, but...

Well, that's not what this post is about. I just wanted to use this blog to get some thoughts out, since it's not as if I have anyone to talk to.



I just saw this farewell video from MatPat of the Game Theory channel. It's the third goodbye video I've seen this past week; the others were from Tom Scott and... I think Joel Haver? In that video, MatPat talks about other creators doing similar videos, but I've not heard of most of them.

A few things stood out to me and resonated with recent thoughts or concerns I've been having:

One is that he's 37 years old. This surprised me! I knew he was about my age, but assumed he was a couple of years younger, as most youtubers 'around my age' seem to be in my experience.

Another was his heartfelt talking about 'our relationship' to the camera, accentuating the parasocial bond between a content creator and an unseen audience. I've seen a lot of creators do this, using language like 'we' and 'this discussion we're having' when referring to a monologue, which has always felt odd to me. Though being an outsider looking in is so deeply ingrained for me that I always assume the people they're talking to don't include me. I wonder what it's like to hear such things and think, at least subconsciously, "he's talking to meeee!".

He talks about regularly meeting people in the real world who recognise him, and who tell him he was or currently is 'their childhood'. ∞ I wrote recently about my own experiences with fans thanking me for the impact I made in their childhood ∞, and how as someone who's long past my own childhood, there's an element of I suppose embarrassment and dissatisfaction with having an audience much younger than myself when I'd rather be reaching people my own age. But it seems adoring audiences necessarily skew very young, as adults are too distracted by the gruelling grind, so if I were to continue creating content - maybe one day even finally plucking up the courage to venture out and promote it again - would the temporal distance between myself and my fans only continue to increase?

MatPat also talks about how he sees himself as basically YouTube's grandpa for making content at the venerable age of 37.

I felt embarrassed, like... Am I too old to be watching this channel? Or YouTube creators in general? I looked around my this little bedroom in my parents' house, filled with Lego, and it all set off an avalanche of miserable thoughts about how poorly I've failed to actually live my life, to even really move beyond the teenager stage in so many ways. Though I suppose 'avalanche' is the wrong metaphor, since it's more like an ocean I've been submerged under for ages now.

The average human lifespan is about 70 to 80 years, the first 18 or so of which are spent effectively in childhood. It's so ridiculous that you then have, what, 12 or 15 years - fresh out of the tutorial and still neurologically developing - during which you're expected to get everything sorted out for the 40 to 50 year 'epilogue' that comes after...

Or at least that's how it feels to me in my current life position. If you've spent your twenties actually living, working, having relationships, then I imagine the transition to the decades beyond feels like much of the same. You've already caught the boat, the question's not the same.

People talk about how it's never too late and share fluffy stories about how their 100 year old grandma went and got her PhD and met the love of her life in the process or whatever, but so much of that feels to me like placating adages parrotted by the guilt-shy or delusional. "Money doesn't buy happiness!" from the millionaire to the vagrant, "you don't need a relationship to be happy, I was honestly happier when I was single!" from the girl who's never been without a partner for longer than a month to the 30-year-old guy who's never so much as held a girl's hand...



I woke up at 3am this morning, and lay awake fearful about this counselling course I'll be starting in just a week.

Or rather, what I'm afraid of is just getting a harsh reminder of how I've forever missed my chance to find the kind of connection I've always felt would make life complete. A fellow awkward young person to clumsily fumble our way through discoveries with, hand-in-hand.

Now, even if I crossed paths with someone young and awkward who was still finding her way in the world, I'd be a creepy predator - or a pathetic wretch - for trying to join her in that. And people closer to my own age are likely to have lived for years in ways I haven't, to have pasts while mine is mostly barren, to have other men's children, to be in an entirely different frame of mind that's more attuned to pragmatic bills-paying and less about free-spirited romance. I'd likely come across as a frustrating idiot to them, with how little I know about the mundanities of daily adult life.

They're also all but guaranteed to inhabit bodies that are tired, broken, lumpy, just as my own is. While sex is barely a concern for me these days anyway - depression destroys the libido - the thought of it with bodies like that - like this - repulses me. Even if I met some young woman who was insane enough to want to jump in bed with me, the idea of her even so much as seeing this grotesquerie makes me feel sick.

It'd be so different if it had been a gradual progression, I imagine. If I'd grown old together with the same person, or worked my way through gradually older partners as I got gradually older myself.

I suppose it's the leap from naivete to jadedness, with no chance to experience the slide between, that bothers me.



Though of course all of this is just assuming, imagining. Very little of my life has actually been spent physically around other people, but I can at least faintly remember how their presence presumably activates a bunch of chemicals in me that alters my perceptions in a way that's conducive to connection.

My ex, for example, objectively wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world, but to me she genuinely was, because of the psychological, emotional bond that we shared.

Last year, I talked with a bunch of people from various mental health services, and just getting out and physically interacting essentially flipped a switch in me, from bitter, mad recluse mode to... well, something that felt more like an actual real person. I always felt sorrowful afterwards that I couldn't just be like that all the time, that I had to go back to my cave again to fester away more of what remains of my sanity and humanity.

But this is why I wish I had a partner. Someone to live with, rather than someone who I could only talk on the phone once a week with. Someone to share silly little daily worries or discoveries with, so I didn't spend so much time dissolving in my own disconnected despair.

O woe is me. Alas. And so on.



Anyway, I'm just venting. What actually prompted me to write this post in the first place was a thing related to the creative work I'm trying to do.

I'm currently trying to make 3D models of the dreamon characters to include in the not-game thing I've been hinting at for apparently a couple of months now. I was trying yesterday, but my 3D modelling skills are apparently rusty and the results were off-putting to me.

I remembered that I made a female base model 'not too long ago' that I put a lot of effort into and was fairly proud of, but which - from what I can recall - I never did much with. I tried to find it my art folder from 2022, which is when I thought I made it. Nothing. Tried 2021. Nothing.



Turns out I made this back it ∞ back in August of 2020 ∞, shortly after making a bunch of models for Atonal Dreams.

So it's good that I found it and can reuse it, but... I suppose I just feel bad that my skills have actually got worse in the three and a half years since then rather than better. Plus looking back that far reminded me of how long it's been since I started the 'this'll only take six months!' Atonal Dreams. Ugh.

Though to be fair to myself, that was directly after practising the skill over several weeks, while my recent efforts have been after a long break. I could probably do better if I made a couple of other models to build up to it.

But I can't really spare the time or energy, so I might just try and adapt this one. It wouldn't be the only years-old model I'm still making use of in my various projects.



Reading back over this, I feel a bit embarrassed to be spewing such negative bias so openly, but I suppose it does help a bit to get it out. Now the thoughts won't be rolling around my head all day. Hopefully.

And maybe I'll feel differently about all this after getting out and spending time with other people next week. We'll see.

That course also isn't my only option, my only chance to connect with others. I need to keep reminding myself of that. The black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking is one of the most annoying aspects of my particular flavour of madness.