Oversharing
Sad, confused, exceedingly emo feels below. Seriously, it's excessive. This is something to help today's me, as embarrassing as it will be to future me. Sorry, future me.
When I find something new and novel, I often dive into it hard. I'll remain interested for a few minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks, or months. Eventually, though, it seems like I give up on a lot. The examples are seemingly innumerable, but I don't recollect most. I don't even want to try to list them cause it kind of hurts, and it's not the hurt I'm trying to explore today.
It's in that context--diving in hard--that I wonder at the true meaning of a rapidly-built friendship. How much is real, and how much is it me wanting it to be real? Yesterday, my hope would rest heavier on the former; today, I hope it's the latter. And that puts a knot in my stomach.
About six months ago, I joined a Discord channel devoted to a furry artist. I made chatroom friends, but it was kind of unfulfilling and distracting. I started trying to distance myself, with mixed success. But it was low-stakes. Not a big deal either way.
Two months or so later, a call went out from that artist, looking for players for an online D&D campaign he was DMing. Danielle gave me the green light, so I gave a fuck-it shrug and messaged the owner. We hadn't really spoken before except in the context of the chat. He was happy to hear from me, though, and inducted me in quick order.
The campaign was well-designed, well-led, and well-played. It went from being fortnightly to mostly-weekly as everyone became more devoted to the story and characters. My character was (is) a sort of first-time secret agent that was doing a fine job of balancing her lies. Following a series of emotional shocks, however, she became a bit more erratic.
About two or three months ago, two of the five party members died in quick succession, including my character's target for her mission (who was supposed to be captured). Her mind in disarray, she immediately developed a sort of crush on one of the replacement characters that the party rescued. (This event begins a series of parallels between my and my character's lives that I really hope are mostly coincidental. Might touch on that another time.)
The budding relationship between my character and the newbie was the first meaningful social contact that she'd had with anyone since she'd "stumbled on" the party; like the rescued character, she really could've used a friend. So the newb's player and I got together to do a side-RP in Discord that described how they spent some downtime. It went well, and they developed a cute and believable rapport.
It's this player--N for short--that I started to become fast friends with. We had the immediate commonality of sharing these characters that had suddenly intertwined themselves together in a dangerous world. We talked about them a lot, but we talked a lot about all kinds of things. We talked a lot. Right now I don't care to try to remember or look through our chat history to get a better sense of the timeline of our friendship--suffice it to say, we ascended through friendship tiers real quick-like. It's a lot easier to share sensitive details with someone who doesn't know your name, after all. We were vulnerable with each other, we helped each other, and we had fun roleplaying our characters together.
We got close.
I told Danielle about her several weeks or a month ago. And we spent some time talking about her a couple weeks back. I've discussed her with my therapist multiple times. I've tried to be careful and smart. Mostly I was, in my own way.
It's been more than a decade since I had someone that provided the same sort of friendship that this woman has offered. She filled an empty niche; one that could have remained empty without serious ill effect, but which also yielded a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment when it was filled. In an exceptionally short time we became--and for an even shorter time we remained--bosom buddies, or non-romantic intimates, or close confidants, whatever.
And... I've lost the energy to really finish this story. I mean, the end of the end is right above--N and I are not close confidants anymore. Now we're just friends, and both she and Danielle are unsettled. Because I wasn't transparent enough with Danielle, and then I overshared with N, and then I overshared with Danielle, and then I overshared with N again. It might have been a matter of time anyway; hard to tell at this point.
There's more to the story, obviously, but the scaffolding is right. I shed a double-digit number of self-pitying tears last night, and at this moment there's still an ache concentrated around my solar plexus. For poetic purposes, I'll say it's my heart.
It's... hard to find confidants.
Things are okay with Danielle, at least.
At least there's that.
At least there's that.
When I find something new and novel, I often dive into it hard. I'll remain interested for a few minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks, or months. Eventually, though, it seems like I give up on a lot. The examples are seemingly innumerable, but I don't recollect most. I don't even want to try to list them cause it kind of hurts, and it's not the hurt I'm trying to explore today.
It's in that context--diving in hard--that I wonder at the true meaning of a rapidly-built friendship. How much is real, and how much is it me wanting it to be real? Yesterday, my hope would rest heavier on the former; today, I hope it's the latter. And that puts a knot in my stomach.
About six months ago, I joined a Discord channel devoted to a furry artist. I made chatroom friends, but it was kind of unfulfilling and distracting. I started trying to distance myself, with mixed success. But it was low-stakes. Not a big deal either way.
Two months or so later, a call went out from that artist, looking for players for an online D&D campaign he was DMing. Danielle gave me the green light, so I gave a fuck-it shrug and messaged the owner. We hadn't really spoken before except in the context of the chat. He was happy to hear from me, though, and inducted me in quick order.
The campaign was well-designed, well-led, and well-played. It went from being fortnightly to mostly-weekly as everyone became more devoted to the story and characters. My character was (is) a sort of first-time secret agent that was doing a fine job of balancing her lies. Following a series of emotional shocks, however, she became a bit more erratic.
About two or three months ago, two of the five party members died in quick succession, including my character's target for her mission (who was supposed to be captured). Her mind in disarray, she immediately developed a sort of crush on one of the replacement characters that the party rescued. (This event begins a series of parallels between my and my character's lives that I really hope are mostly coincidental. Might touch on that another time.)
The budding relationship between my character and the newbie was the first meaningful social contact that she'd had with anyone since she'd "stumbled on" the party; like the rescued character, she really could've used a friend. So the newb's player and I got together to do a side-RP in Discord that described how they spent some downtime. It went well, and they developed a cute and believable rapport.
It's this player--N for short--that I started to become fast friends with. We had the immediate commonality of sharing these characters that had suddenly intertwined themselves together in a dangerous world. We talked about them a lot, but we talked a lot about all kinds of things. We talked a lot. Right now I don't care to try to remember or look through our chat history to get a better sense of the timeline of our friendship--suffice it to say, we ascended through friendship tiers real quick-like. It's a lot easier to share sensitive details with someone who doesn't know your name, after all. We were vulnerable with each other, we helped each other, and we had fun roleplaying our characters together.
We got close.
I told Danielle about her several weeks or a month ago. And we spent some time talking about her a couple weeks back. I've discussed her with my therapist multiple times. I've tried to be careful and smart. Mostly I was, in my own way.
It's been more than a decade since I had someone that provided the same sort of friendship that this woman has offered. She filled an empty niche; one that could have remained empty without serious ill effect, but which also yielded a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment when it was filled. In an exceptionally short time we became--and for an even shorter time we remained--bosom buddies, or non-romantic intimates, or close confidants, whatever.
And... I've lost the energy to really finish this story. I mean, the end of the end is right above--N and I are not close confidants anymore. Now we're just friends, and both she and Danielle are unsettled. Because I wasn't transparent enough with Danielle, and then I overshared with N, and then I overshared with Danielle, and then I overshared with N again. It might have been a matter of time anyway; hard to tell at this point.
There's more to the story, obviously, but the scaffolding is right. I shed a double-digit number of self-pitying tears last night, and at this moment there's still an ache concentrated around my solar plexus. For poetic purposes, I'll say it's my heart.
It's... hard to find confidants.
Things are okay with Danielle, at least.
At least there's that.
At least there's that.
1 Comments:
At 09 June, 2021 13:02,
Anonymous said…
I check this blog probably once a week, looking for signs of life after seeing that entry. Hoping things got better.
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