Only to realise my client was scrolled up and everyone has moved on and my emote now makes no sense.

@Tat I can’t reveal more of our secrets. I have already said too much.

Okay, but I’m watching you.

I am like one of four extroverts in the hobby

Fascinating. I didn’t know you existed. Tell me more.

@Herja said in The Stupid Things We Do:

Many MU friends aren’t really friends but more like really active acquaintances.

This is such a good way to put it. Friendly active acquaintances, even! But friendly isn’t the same as friends, and I personally find it really off-putting when a friendly active acquaintance starts dumping friend-level emotions, information, and expectations on me.

I think I view other players on a game with me almost like co-workers. We’re friendly! I like you! We’re together a lot! I’m not going to tell you about my parents’ divorce.

Amen. Additionally, I enjoy spending time with you, but I also enjoy spending time with these other people, and I am not going to prioritise you over them at this our work place.

Many MU friends aren’t really friends but more like really active acquaintances.

This is such a good way to put it. Friendly active acquaintances, even! But friendly isn’t the same as friends, and I personally find it really off-putting when a friendly active acquaintance starts dumping friend-level emotions, information, and expectations on me.

I think I view other players on a game with me almost like co-workers. We’re friendly! I like you! We’re together a lot! I’m not going to tell you about my parents’ divorce.

The only reason I don’t bang on your door for more is the feeling I described in my previous post – not wanting to come off as one of those “will take everything not nailed down and then move on” people. So I probably end up coming across like I’ve moved on anyway, tbh, which is its own problem. But I am always bouncing-in-my-seat excited for a chance to do stuff with you. Then I just get guilty and turtle-y about asking for more.

I feel like it’s super common to feel self-conscious when you have “too much” story and to feel left out when you have “not enough” story, but a lot of that is stuff we do to ourselves as players. All I can say is that it really can’t be the storyteller’s responsibility to manage my anxiety about engaging with story, that’s gotta be my job.

Maybe this isn’t how you see it – it doesn’t seem to be – but it’s a self-sabotaging feeling that I don’t really seem to have much choice with, as to when it comes and how long it sticks around.

Which, you know, The Stupid Things We Do on MU*s.

I think Herja is very right that placing oversized expectations on others beyond this is will end up in the sort of hurt she describes. So I’m glad she learned to adjust how she engages in a way that’s better for her mental health, because I know from experience that can be a hard adjustment.

I’ve, in general, learnt that once people really show you who they are. When they insist that is who they are, through their repeated actions, you should just bloody well believe them.

A lot of my realization was that I was the problem in some of these situations by expecting that everyone was like me and willing to put others fun before self and then feeling crushed when said person was obviously not as invested in me as I was in them. I was the problem there. Not them. In the case of people who manipulated and lied to me to keep me around, I lay the blame mostly on them but a little on me for being way too open to being taken advantage of in that way.

It took being in a situation where I was on the other side of that equation as the one who didn’t see the other as a friend but just someone I was GMing for and then having their expectations blow up and being embroiled in drama over it and feeling fucking terrible about it because hurting people, even when I didn’t mean to, sucks. That was my realization that investing too much didn’t just hurt me but was wildly unfair to people I placed this unspoken expectation of friendship reciprocation. I feel a lot better about this hobby now and get involved in waaaaaaay less emotional drama and turmoil because most of my MU friendships are fairly superficial and focused more on the game than on building a personal connection. And I find that I am really good with that. I am open to forming those connections but I no longer do all the work to create them and tend to be a bit standoffish which means someone kind of has to work for it now where before I was just wearing my heart on my sleeve for a long time and wondering why it kept getting fucked up.

I have definitely been, and really still am, one of those people that bounced, more than I’ve ever stuck, and it has never been because I did not enjoy particular people I RP’d with or that I was only hoping for something from them (once again knowing you don’t mean everyone).

I almost always bounced from a MU for reasons to do with my own inability to find a sticking point. With things like discord and the like now, it’s easier to stay connected to people even when you don’t stick, but despite us probably never having played together, I’m sure there were others like me who enjoyed their IC connections with you despite failing as RP partners.

I lost the point somewhere, probably didn’t have one, other than maybe generally feeling it’s too bad that setting that expectation is the safer bet.