Midnight Confessions

Everything would just be so much easer, if I could just fucking hate you

I know that everything happens for a reason. Reasons always seem to change. Lies are old. Why is what's on your mind never what I'm being told?

I know that if you really cared, something really would have changed. If things were really meant to be, You wouldn't make me so deranged.

I know you're really gone for good now, and that is how I hope it stays.

Trading card games have always been such an important part of my life; a world with TCG's is just not one I would want to live in. This sounds corny but I've always struggled to find a place in the world, struggled with what I want to do, what paths I've wanted to follow, how to make friends, how to associate and connect with other people. Thankfully I've found my place. For the longest time I spent my time playing Magic: The Gathering, and while I had some achievements, put up some results, and made a small name for myself, I made friends but never really felt the vibes.

Eventually I grew tired of Magic and friends convinced me to try something different: Flesh and Blood. I got pretty sucked into the game pretty quickly as there's been nothing like it. Put quite simply as opposed to opther TCG's, the correlation between skill and work is much more direct than with other games. While other games can very regularly have "non-games" where you lose to the dumbest person you've ever conversed with, trying to squeeze every last chance they have rule-sharking you through every game action, FAB excels in high-skill expresion and sportsmanship. Quite bluntly 99% of the losses I've gotten this game I've deserved, and 99% of the opponents I've played have been nothing but the upmost of sports (corny I know sorry I'm 3/4 of a bottle of wine deep).

But this post isn't about the game as much as it is the people. I've always been an avoidant little guy and as I said earlier struggled with human connection but the people I've become surounded by playing this game warm my heart each and every day I get to see them. It's hard to describe how these people make me feel but there's a lot of them I've really come to enjoy spending time around, and I hope to keep them in my life even outside of this game.

Connection is such a fickle thing. In a world of instant gratification and quick bursts of concetrated dopamine the need for long-term connection just feels so hard to find. To say I'm above this need for "quick hits" would be bullshit, but to say I don't want to build a genuine connection would be a lie. I miss feeling heard, I miss feeling needed. The one thing better than having someone who accepts who you are and only wants you to better yourself and be happy, is the need for you to give the same to someone else.

It's not hard to figure out what this post is about; I'm lonely and think about wether or not my most recent breakup was the right decision often. At the end of the day I've never felt so in sync, so connected, so beloved and cherished as Sophie made me feel. But Sophie is a liar, I can never trust her again- she's so completely full of shit, and drags the people around her down with her entitlement and inability to take responsibility for her own actions and god-complex.

There's a popular Tik-Tok of a young woman joking about questions to ask when hooking up with someone for the first time, when the joke stops and she looks in the camera and says something along the lines of

"Do you have a recent relationship where things ended because of circumstance and not becuase of love? Causing you to search for her in every girlt that you meet?" I sometimes think, this is where I'll be for such a long time.

Beyond this inability to get over her, It's so difficult to build new connections with people my age. Young love is difficult (I'm only 21) especially when you saw a world where you spend the rest of your life with someone. What's harder is when you start to form the reality of this imagined world. You can't build a life with someone who lies to you, gaslights you, and can't even take care of themselves. I've tried to start building a connection with someone new but it feels like there is nothing to build. Men only want to fuck, women only want attention- I can't seem to meet anyone to entwine myself with.

Fast asleep for once, I was awoken at 4AM to loud banging and pounding. With immense thuds echoing across my room, I laid awake scared and alone. After 10 minutes of thids in the night I sheepishly rose from my bed, and went downstairs to check it out.

At first I went to my front door, but the pounding ceased. I questiuoned wether it was all in my head and walked back to my living room only to hear a roar of obsenities. This was not coming from my front door, but was coming from outside.

"Fucking let me in! Open the fucking door! Bitch fucking let me in" I heard outside. I slowly peered a blind to see if I could see anything outside (I live on the second floor of my complex). There was nothing but silence and the light-hungry night. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, no lights were on outside, the noises stopped when I peered, and I convinced myself it was all in my head. I sat on the floor next to my window pondering what was going on, only to hear the sound fo glass breaking, and a painful moan followed quickly behind it.

Then there was silence. All was quite and the only thing left was the hum of my fridge. I slowly walked back up to my room, scared and confused, I laid and wept. I asked myself if I should call the police, what if someone was hurt, what if this is a domestic violence situation? I didn't know what to do; I cried myself to sleep again.

I woke up early this morning, and decided to take a walk. After a cup of coffee I walked around my buildiong and sorounding buildings. There was no sign of the events of the night before - did this really happen? No broken windows, no broken sliding glass doors, everything was as it should be.

Everyone else is asleep. My apartment hums like it knows something I don't.

I keep rereading old messages, looking for proof that I mattered more than I probably did. Funny how memory edits things, softens the cruelty, sharpens the longing.

Tomorrow I’ll pretend I’m fine. Tonight, I don’t have to lie.