Tamrielo

A close friend of mine called me out on something recently, and it led to a really great conversation. I spend a lot of time thinking about things, but rarely put them into words for other people– a lot of times things become clearer for me when I’m forced to express them.

Simply put, most of the time I don’t trust myself. It’s a odd thought to mull over, and my hope is that putting it more into words here will help clarify it. Some people put up walls and keep people at a distance because they’re afraid of being hurt. I understand that, and I get those motivations, but it’s not what happens with me. I’ve been hurt by other people, but it’s never shaken my belief that most people aren’t going to intentionally hurt me. Instead, I’m more afraid of hurting other people.

It manifests in strange ways. I prefer the man-behind-the-curtain approach, and I’m very reticent to commit to things with people unless I’m absolutely sure I can make it work. I’ve caught myself making jokes about “I don’t know why anyone follows me”, expressed as a warning to others that maybe they shouldn’t follow me. People still do, and for all the jokes about not knowing why, I really do know why they do.

I don’t trust myself; I have a deep-seated belief that I am a hair’s breadth away from letting everyone down all the time. I put a lot of effort into being a good leader and a perceptive friend and an attentive lover because I don’t want to let people down (more than I, in my mind, already have). It drives me to be a good leader, it drives me to pursue excellence, because that looming shadow is always behind me. People trust me, and that scares me because I don’t share their feelings.

At the same time, I know what I’m capable of, and I’m well aware of my skills. There’s an Infinity tournament this weekend, and I’ve been agonizing over what to play. I’ve been repeatedly told “bring whatever you feel like!” or even “bring something really brutal, we want to see it,” and it makes me anxious. I know I can take pretty much any list and be very effective with it. I’ve been playing the game a long time and I’m confident in my skills. What I worry about is my reputation. I don’t want to be That Guy Who Just Moved Here And Wins Constantly, but it’s not respectful to my opponents to play intentionally unplayable lists or otherwise let them win. In the meantime, people are consistently happy to play against me, even when they lose. I’ve had one or two local players ask me to bring something just utterly crushing, and when I do and beat them soundly, they’re EXCITED, like losing so badly was the coolest thing ever, and it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that.

I have a habit that I’ve been trying to break lately. I have, over many years, become an expert at crafting ornate little (metaphorical) masks that I use to interact with people. To compartmentalize my interactions with others, I only show them one of a number of masks that represent some facet of myself, and the rest stays hidden away. As I get to know someone better, I’ll use a few more, showing off different facets, but there’s still that barrier. It’s always a small thrill when someone can see past the mask and calls me out on it, but it doesn’t happen often, and I have a number of friends and acquaintances who are very familiar with a mask and have barely any idea who I really am underneath. I have, at times, wondered whether there is anything underneath all the masks, or if that’s really all of me. I would have, at one point, argued that point very convincingly.

Very, very rarely, I will get close enough to someone and they’ll have seen enough of my masks that I don’t have to wear them anymore. This is true of a very, very small number of people, and they tend to be friendships that last me for years. I’ve been trying, lately, to let more people in. Someone commented to me, when I talked about my masks, that keeping that up constantly must be exhausting. I can’t really say. If it is, it’s a thing I’ve been doing so long that the effort isn’t noticable anymore. What I do know is that, every so often, I’m close enough to someone that in order to be honest with them, I have to trust myself, just a little bit. It’s hard, and I don’t get there with many people.

I am, as a result, very thoughtful and considering when it comes to love. For all that I’m a romantic, actually loving someone is a tough hurdle, because I have to have first taken off all the masks, and then I have to remember how to trust myself. When I’m there, though, it’s a continual feedback loop. I’m a better, more open, less detached person, and in addition to being someone I respect and care for, the person I’m with is a constant reminder to remember how to trust myself, because I often forget.

Another friend of mine asked me if I trusted other people. I think I surprised him when I said I did– I’ve never had a problem trusting others, once they’ve been given a chance to prove that they’re trustworthy. I’m not naive, but I’m not overly suspicious either. I know I have a network of friends who I can trust to have my back if/when I really need it (and even when I don’t), but for me the challenge is trusting myself, trusting that I’m the kind of person worth that sort of effort.

It’s a work in progress. Isn’t everything?

No pictures today, other than the header. Sorry not sorry for the wall of text; I’m forcing myself to post this to open up, but I secretly hope that the pictureless expanse of text will cause people to tune out, so I’m maybe not opening up as much. If you got this far, thank you. You’re helping.

I’m not actually participating in Blaugust (or, as I like to call it, Bel-gust), but I’m not enough of a hipster to turn my nose up when I get called out directly.

I guess there’s something called a “Liebster Award” that’s something like a blogging chain letter. From what I’ve been able to gather, you present 11 random facts and then answer the previous person’s questions, then pay it forward to someone else.

11 Random Facts:

1. I spent my childhood traveling on vacations with my parents. It’s given me a very broad worldview and hunger to discover more about the world that I tend to take for granted.
2. I am validated by achievement and driven by romance. It’s an odd duality.
3. I spent about a decade as a game designer, and learned an incredible amount in that time about the inner workings of how games are made.
4. I graduated from MIT, and it’s an accomplishment that I cling to when I don’t feel like I’m able to do anything (often).
5. I have a bad habit of bouncing my leg when I’m sitting. It annoys me and everyone around me.
6. I’m really, genuinely interested in people and what they have to say. I’m an introvert who pours energy into people like an extrovert. I’m often very reticent to connect with new people because of this– I never feel like I’m giving enough energy to the friends I have, and the thought of spending even more energy on new people is scary.
7. I used to wear exclusively black t-shirts and cargo pants until I realized that I can pull off clothing combinations that other people can’t. Now I’ve discovered that I have a taste for fashion and, when appropriate, love to ‘dress up’.
8. I do not think quickly on my feet, but I am an extremely detailed planner. If I look like I have a snappy response or a quick reaction to something, it’s almost always because I expected it and had planned for it. I go deer-in-the-headlights when faced with something I don’t have a planned response for.
9. Alignment-wise, I am almost certainly True Neutral.
10. I have very little time or interest in strictly competitive games. Even the one competitive game I play regularly (Infinity) is, to me, more of a collaborative action scene than a competitive game, even at the tournament level.
11. I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to dating. Were I not single, it would honestly be really funny (it often still is).

Here are Ash’s 11 questions:

1. Why do you blog? Yes, I know it’s a repeat. Deal with it.
   • Discipline. It forces me to write on a regular schedule and keeps me sharp and constantly coming up with things to say.
2. What’s the first game you remember playing?
   • I don’t remember. It was either Quest for Glory 3 at a friend’s house or Star Wars: Rebel Assault. I have fond memories of both games.
3. Dogs or Cats?
   • Neither. I own a dog, but she’s the last phase of dog-phobia therapy. I can’t say I’m a dog or cat person.
4. Do you have a favorite villain?
   • Sephiroth, from FFVII. It’s cliché, I know, but for the first half of the game he’s an incredibly compelling, mysterious villain that you’re chasing but don’t *really* want to catch. Close runners up would be Darth Vader and Handsome Jack.
5. What are your thoughts on escort missions?
   • Like anything, good when done well. Ico is an incredible game that is a single, long escort quest, Portal and Portal 2 have very compelling escort sequences, and Bioshock:Infinite has similar concepts going on. There are a lot of examples of bad escorts, but the good ones really, really shine.
6. Borrowing from the “stereotypical interview questions” list, What would you say is your biggest weakness? (I did actually get this question a lot last year.)
   • I wear a lot of masks around people, because I want people to feel comfortable around me. It works altogether too well and it means that I have a bad tendency to keep people at a distance, behind the mask.
7. What character archetype do you find yourself playing most often?
   • The Mage. This comes in a lot of forms, but my favorite is the Duelist Mage, with sword and spell. Jedi are very close to this, as are Red Mages. I’m frequently disappointed by the experience, because they’re usually either ultra-weak or horrifically overpowered.
8. Other than games and the means to play them, do you own any gaming-related items?
   • I used to have a lot– figures, posters, etc, but got rid of pretty much all of it when I moved across the country. Now, I have a small-but-growing collection of tasteful game art.
9. Because I know who these questions are going to, I can ask this one: What’s your favorite system for Tabletop RPGs?
   • World of Darkness. It’s one of the few systems in which I feel like I’m making a character and not a selection of stats. It also enables interesting non-combat play in a way that pretty much no other system I’ve ever seen does well. I really enjoy coming up with and seeing players come up with interesting solutions to problems, and WoD really enables and encourages that kind of creativity, whereas I feel like a lot of other systems are an excuse to get into fights all the time.
10. What upcoming games (if any) are you looking forward to?
    • Persona 5, more than anything else. I’m also greatly looking forward to the next installment of Deus Ex, and Mass Effect: Andromeda.
11. Why can’t Ash count to 11?
    • I really don’t know.

With all of that done, here’s my set of (actually 11) questions:

1. What is the best spell to cast?
2. What food item(s) from a game do you want to eat above any others?
3. You’ve got an infinite supply of one consumable, and can never carry any others. Which consumable do you choose?
4. You have to choose a race and class that you’ve never played seriously before. What do you pick?
5. What game did you think you would hate but actually loved?
6. What game did you think you would love but actually hated?
7. Pick a zone from any game to live in. Why?
8. You can excise one class from every future game. Which? Why?
9. What’s your favorite story?
10. What hobby does no one (yet) know you have?
11. What is your favorite secret shame? >:D

Bel, Liore and Thalen, you’re up, if that’s how this works.