This wasn't intended to be so long, but I suppose I needed to vent. This is as good a place as any, right?
I fucking hate Reno. Life after PAX is so boring and featureless. I love my friends here, but they aren't gamers and I am. The friends I made in Seattle, who are now scattered around the country again, are so much fun. They're vibrant, energetic, goofy, spontaneous, and nerdy. My friends here just... aren't that. They're smart, and funny, and mature, and that's why I like them. But fuck, can they be a drag sometimes. I went over to Tim's house today because I was having some people over for games and I wanted to see if he was coming, and he, his girlfriend Meagan, and my friend Nick were all watching The Shield in the dark. It's at least the third or fourth time that they've seen The Shield, and they would rather watch that in a dark living room, speaking to no one, than come hang out and do stuff. I tell them about the games and Tim just says, "Can you do it without us?" Like I asked them to help tile my bathroom or something. Like it's this big burden to hang out and have fun. I just don't understand it, and it's frustrating.
They also aren't social at all. Yesterday I threw a Rock Band party and my friend Tim hung out for like 2 hours before people showed up, playing Rock Band by himself. Not even with me, just on my Xbox. People show up and he bugs out to his house next door. I wander over and I say, "what's up dude, where'd you go?" He's like, "oh, I gotta upload this video and stuff." I told him how silly and anti-social he was being and he came back over, and then bailed like 5 minutes later. I didn't try to coax him into having fun the second time. What the hell? Then later he and Nick come over, say hello, and bail. They love to "come over and say hi," which is what people do when they can't bring themselves to hang out and have fun because of some bullshit reason.
I've lived next to Tim and Nick for like 2 years now. They're my two closest friends. A year ago if you'd asked me how open I was to moving away, my answer would've been, "Are you fucking serious? My two best friends live next door. I'm never moving." Now I entertain the thought just to be somewhere different. Seeing someone every day, whether they're a significant other or a friend, really strains the relationship. It's almost like you can only spend so much time together total, in your entire relationship, from beginning to end. It has a definite life span, and being around each other every day just cuts the life span of the relationship down to nothing. I love Tim, I really do, but lately he's been driving me fucking insane. I want to kill him sometimes.
I've really been coming out of my shell socially in the last few months, since my relationship ended in February. I've started going out to things like trivia nights, I took an improv class just to get around new people, and I've really gotten over a lot of the stupid social hangups I used to have. I've been making a conscious effort to talk to people, go outside my normal comfort zone, and just open up a little in the hopes of meeting cool new people. And it's been working! I've been meeting a lot of new people lately, gone on a few dates, and I'm really very happy with the way things are going in that part of my life. So it's frustrating to see people around me be so introverted. It really makes me dislike them, even though they're my best friends.
Ultimately I think I've just been in the same place too long. I'm getting tired of seeing the same faces, having the same conversations, and encountering the same ideas. When one of my friends starts telling a joke or a story that I've heard a dozen times before, I just want to strangle them. And it happens a lot, because really, I hang out with 4 or 5 people.
Worst of all and because of all that, I'm getting really sick of indulging and accessing the same parts of my personality, and similarly, denying the other parts. I spent my late teens and very early twenties denying the gamer part of my life, precisely because I had no one to share it with. I focused on other things; writing, school, comedy, etc. and kept that part of my life to a minimum. But in the last few years I've let it grow. I've really come to terms with the fact that this is what I do for fun, this is the culture I identify with the most, and it's something I don't want to ignore. But now that I've made peace with that and let it grow, it's a source of frustration because I have no one to share it with. I can't discuss anything, make any gamer jokes, play things with them (beyond Halo or Rock Band), or expect any camaraderie. It sucks.
I have things in common with the people I know here in Reno, but it's not very much. There are huge parts of my life that I keep all to myself, and it's a very lonely thing to do. Ultimately I want nothing more than to have someone who I really click with, male or female, who I can spend time with effortlessly. If this person were female it would be double plus good. Going from a 3.5 year relationship with a woman to being single is rough in very strange, simple ways. I crave the company of women lately just because they're women. The voices, the mannerisms, the attitudes, the laughter, the difference in height and body... having women around feeds a very basic and, I imagine, primal need that I've only recently discovered I have. It helps keep me sane to have them around, even in a strictly platonic way. There are also the more obvious reasons for having women around, and those are pretty powerful, too. Thankfully I've been dating lately and it seems to be going well. The woman I'm seeing is currently in Oregon, so I'm a little wound up because of that. There are a few other women who I've recently met who really interest me, too, and I'm trying to spend time with them to feel out whether or not a date is in the future. I don't think the woman I'm dating now has any long term potential, but we've both said that we're just dating and there's no expectations yet, so I suppose that's okay.
Anyway. Very frustrated and needed to get that out.
I fucking hate Reno. Life after PAX is so boring and featureless. I love my friends here, but they aren't gamers and I am. The friends I made in Seattle, who are now scattered around the country again, are so much fun. They're vibrant, energetic, goofy, spontaneous, and nerdy. My friends here just... aren't that. They're smart, and funny, and mature, and that's why I like them. But fuck, can they be a drag sometimes. I went over to Tim's house today because I was having some people over for games and I wanted to see if he was coming, and he, his girlfriend Meagan, and my friend Nick were all watching The Shield in the dark. It's at least the third or fourth time that they've seen The Shield, and they would rather watch that in a dark living room, speaking to no one, than come hang out and do stuff. I tell them about the games and Tim just says, "Can you do it without us?" Like I asked them to help tile my bathroom or something. Like it's this big burden to hang out and have fun. I just don't understand it, and it's frustrating.
They also aren't social at all. Yesterday I threw a Rock Band party and my friend Tim hung out for like 2 hours before people showed up, playing Rock Band by himself. Not even with me, just on my Xbox. People show up and he bugs out to his house next door. I wander over and I say, "what's up dude, where'd you go?" He's like, "oh, I gotta upload this video and stuff." I told him how silly and anti-social he was being and he came back over, and then bailed like 5 minutes later. I didn't try to coax him into having fun the second time. What the hell? Then later he and Nick come over, say hello, and bail. They love to "come over and say hi," which is what people do when they can't bring themselves to hang out and have fun because of some bullshit reason.
I've lived next to Tim and Nick for like 2 years now. They're my two closest friends. A year ago if you'd asked me how open I was to moving away, my answer would've been, "Are you fucking serious? My two best friends live next door. I'm never moving." Now I entertain the thought just to be somewhere different. Seeing someone every day, whether they're a significant other or a friend, really strains the relationship. It's almost like you can only spend so much time together total, in your entire relationship, from beginning to end. It has a definite life span, and being around each other every day just cuts the life span of the relationship down to nothing. I love Tim, I really do, but lately he's been driving me fucking insane. I want to kill him sometimes.
I've really been coming out of my shell socially in the last few months, since my relationship ended in February. I've started going out to things like trivia nights, I took an improv class just to get around new people, and I've really gotten over a lot of the stupid social hangups I used to have. I've been making a conscious effort to talk to people, go outside my normal comfort zone, and just open up a little in the hopes of meeting cool new people. And it's been working! I've been meeting a lot of new people lately, gone on a few dates, and I'm really very happy with the way things are going in that part of my life. So it's frustrating to see people around me be so introverted. It really makes me dislike them, even though they're my best friends.
Ultimately I think I've just been in the same place too long. I'm getting tired of seeing the same faces, having the same conversations, and encountering the same ideas. When one of my friends starts telling a joke or a story that I've heard a dozen times before, I just want to strangle them. And it happens a lot, because really, I hang out with 4 or 5 people.
Worst of all and because of all that, I'm getting really sick of indulging and accessing the same parts of my personality, and similarly, denying the other parts. I spent my late teens and very early twenties denying the gamer part of my life, precisely because I had no one to share it with. I focused on other things; writing, school, comedy, etc. and kept that part of my life to a minimum. But in the last few years I've let it grow. I've really come to terms with the fact that this is what I do for fun, this is the culture I identify with the most, and it's something I don't want to ignore. But now that I've made peace with that and let it grow, it's a source of frustration because I have no one to share it with. I can't discuss anything, make any gamer jokes, play things with them (beyond Halo or Rock Band), or expect any camaraderie. It sucks.
I have things in common with the people I know here in Reno, but it's not very much. There are huge parts of my life that I keep all to myself, and it's a very lonely thing to do. Ultimately I want nothing more than to have someone who I really click with, male or female, who I can spend time with effortlessly. If this person were female it would be double plus good. Going from a 3.5 year relationship with a woman to being single is rough in very strange, simple ways. I crave the company of women lately just because they're women. The voices, the mannerisms, the attitudes, the laughter, the difference in height and body... having women around feeds a very basic and, I imagine, primal need that I've only recently discovered I have. It helps keep me sane to have them around, even in a strictly platonic way. There are also the more obvious reasons for having women around, and those are pretty powerful, too. Thankfully I've been dating lately and it seems to be going well. The woman I'm seeing is currently in Oregon, so I'm a little wound up because of that. There are a few other women who I've recently met who really interest me, too, and I'm trying to spend time with them to feel out whether or not a date is in the future. I don't think the woman I'm dating now has any long term potential, but we've both said that we're just dating and there's no expectations yet, so I suppose that's okay.
Anyway. Very frustrated and needed to get that out.