Hanako's darker tiles game

[AnonymousOfNorway]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, and I believe you, but in my case, when I had that break up, I was very depressed and lonely. I wasn't really looking for company, but all of my friends knew what happened, but afterwards, I realised, not a single one of the came over, or even send me a text to ask how I was doing, no one seemed to care.

Well, to put it in metaphor of the game, they were treating you like Hanako, when you were really Hisao. Sometimes it's right to give people space, but it's too easy to think "I'm no psychologist, I'll probably just make it worse", "I'm no white knight", or "I have enough problems myself". Just hanging out a bit with the grieving person is often enough really, until the person is ready to talk about it. Some professional or spiritual counseling might be needed too, but going "welp, let's back off everybody" if often wrong.

Well, you know this already, but just saying for other people reading the thread.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't rule out the possibility that I was missed. In fact, I'm sure that I was. The problem is that I don't care. Like I said, the only people I need are those who need me.

Did you care about them though? Did you need them?

People who make plans amongst themselves right in front of you, ignoring your very existence and excluding you for no adequately explored reason are patently worthless, and not needed.

Did you try to include yourself in those plans at the time? Perhaps they thought they knew you better than they really did.

Logical. But for me, we're talking about people I've known since I was 5, with whom I was never able to get any closer to in over a decade. I suppose we never really tried, though. Also, I'm somewhat indifferent towards the matter. Everything we ever experienced together was frivolous.

Could one say that your relationship to each other stayed as if you were still little kids? I don't have a close relationship to anyone from that age, except my family.

Me having something better to do sounds hilarious to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm overtaken by loneliness from time to time, but I'm also the type of person who enjoys being alone (probably due to being alone in the first place), so my social life is nonexistent, and everyone knows that. I left because I knew everyone would get the message. "Miss me? Come find me."

Well, not everyone needs to have tons of friends and be the center of attention. If you enjoy solitude, what's wrong with it? Beyond the societal expectation that you should have best friends?
Would you say that you've never had a really close friend?

[dunkelfalke]

Actually I am already happy that I've found some people whom I can talk to over the internet, that is quite an achievement for me in my current situation.

Yeah, it is. You howled at the moon, and we howled right back at ya.

And I am very grateful for that. Maybe there is a shimmer of hope for me after all.

[Raburesu]

Sometimes it's right to give people space, but it's too easy to think "I'm no psychologist, I'll probably just make it worse", "I'm no white knight", or "I have enough problems myself".

They could have been genuinely uninterested, though. It's most likely naivete on my part, but if a person is left alone long enough to develop suspicions that they are unimportant, they most likely are. It's even worse if you were in fact important to them, yet they allowed themselves to forget about you over time.

Did you care about them though? Did you need them?

Slightly, and no.

If I needed them, I wouldn't have abandoned them all so easily, now would I? Granted, it was actually a very capricious decision. I just sort of woke up one morning and went, "Huh. Y'know what? I'm going to do this today. :3 See what happens."

And then, I did. No ambivalence.

Did you try to include yourself in those plans at the time? Perhaps they thought they knew you better than they really did.

Haha. Include myself? As in, actually request that I not be unwanted that particular day? With all due respect, doing something such as that would make me retch.

Perhaps. Writing inures one to feeling and being affected by a veritable tempest of different emotions, thus making it difficult to decide for yourself what is real and what is not, after creating so many things. I am, after all, not entirely certain that I know myself very well, so how can others be expected to? I like it that way, though, so it's not a problem~ I sort of revel in being complicated. >:3

Could one say that your relationship to each other stayed as if you were still little kids?

Nah. Kids wouldn't talk about sex.

...

The serious answer is probably "yes."

Well, not everyone needs to have tons of friends and be the center of attention. If you enjoy solitude, what's wrong with it? Beyond the societal expectation that you should have best friends?
Would you say that you've never had a really close friend?

I most likely only enjoy solitude as a result of being inured to solitude. It's like a captive developing Stockholm Syndrome. It takes time, and is only a delusion of the mind. If one truly enjoyed being alone, then they wouldn't ever feel sad being lonely. But I digress.

No, I've had someone I'd call my best friend in the past. But due to a lack of a strong emotional bond with his parents, as well as being neglected in favour of his older brother, he went down a dark path; one that I couldn't follow. I don't know where he is right now, what he's doing, or how he ended up.

If I ever see him again, I'm going to slap the shit outta myself first for abandoning him over something so meaningless, and then him for being so stupid.

[Beoran]

Rabureseu, sounds like you wanted to make a radical change to your life, but maybe it was one for the worse? Was it a time when you got tired of it all
and decided to throw it all way? Did you feel like they were all against you, or that all of them didn't care of you?

Dunkelfalke, I'm glad to hear that you see some hope. The spark of hope is the first step, next is the spark of determination.

Just thinking about so many things in the game and things I read here I made up this "plan for getting better for myself, maybe it's of use to somebody else too. Ranting too much is one of my problems though, so make of it what you will.

1) My old ways caused me pain and grief. I want to get better, because I deeply feel in my mind and heart that I want to do so.
2) I will put in an effort every day to get better. Today, I will start and continue on the road to get better, one step at the time, because that is what I want.
3) Some things probably can't be fixed, but that's OK with me. Perfectionism is paralyzing, so I reject it.
4) I will be honest with myself. It's easy to fool myself into thinking I'm making progress when I'm not. But I will be honest because I want to get better for real.
5) I reject both self-pity and indifference. I will accept the mistakes I make every day without undue grief, and learn from them.
6) I will stay alert and examine my mistakes, words, behavior and habits, so I can stay on the path of recovery.
7) I will seek out the help of reliable other people when my path is blocked. They cannot walk my road for me, but they can point the way and encourage me.

Kind Regards,

B.

[danyo]

Just thinking about so many things in the game and things I read here I made up this "plan for getting better for myself, maybe it's of use to somebody else too. Ranting too much is one of my problems though, so make of it what you will.

1) My old ways caused me pain and grief. I want to get better, because I deeply feel in my mind and heart that I want to do so.
2) I will put in an effort every day to get better. Today, I will start and continue on the road to get better, one step at the time, because that is what I want.
3) Some things probably can't be fixed, but that's OK with me. Perfectionism is paralyzing, so I reject it.
4) I will be honest with myself. It's easy to fool myself into thinking I'm making progress when I'm not. But I will be honest because I want to get better for real.
5) I reject both self-pity and indifference. I will accept the mistakes I make every day without undue grief, and learn from them.
6) I will stay alert and examine my mistakes, words, behavior and habits, so I can stay on the path of recovery.
7) I will seek out the help of reliable other people when my path is blocked. They cannot walk my road for me, but they can point the way and encourage me.

Kind Regards,

B.

I like this, and I'm happy you set yourself up for something like that, and I'm sure there's others that could probably use it aswell. Hell, I could probably use it, but for now, I don't feel like it yet, I'm not ready for it, if I would do it now, I know I'll end up deeper then before because I pushed myself to far to fast and ended up with nothing. I think currently, I'm in a state that one misfortune could push me over the edge and make me lose my last grip of control I got over my life, so for now, I'll just stay lonely, untill I found a way to do some soulsearching, because I think that's what I need right now, figuring out what I want in life, figuring out who I am.

[dunkelfalke]

Good plan. Mine is similar. I haven't been able to manage a few points of it yet, but this is not a reason to give up. It took me years to become as I am, it will take a while to stop being me as well.

[Beoran]

Danyo,

Well, I think I can relate to what you say, I felt like that before too at times. But I'm sorry, I don't know how I could encourage you properly without it sounding wrong or condescending.

As for soul searching, I find that just thinking about myself on my own usually isn't enough to get me anywhere. My brain, "mind" and "heart" needs new inputs before they can produce new outputs. So I'd look for some intense life experiences, and usually I get spome epiphany after I . For me things like going to Japan or climbing mount Fuji perked me right up. And as of lately, playing KS, of course.

Dunkelfake,
good to hear that. I don't think it's about "stopping" but more about "healing", but that's maybe just semantics.

Kind Regards,

B.

[danyo]

Danyo,

Well, I think I can relate to what you say, I felt like that before too at times. But I'm sorry, I don't know how I could encourage you properly without it sounding wrong or condescending.

As for soul searching, I find that just thinking about myself on my own usually isn't enough to get me anywhere. My brain, "mind" and "heart" needs new inputs before they can produce new outputs. So I'd look for some intense life experiences, and usually I get spome epiphany after I . For me things like going to Japan or climbing mount Fuji perked me right up. And as of lately, playing KS, of course.

Kind Regards,

B.

Hehe, I'm not easely offended anyway But yes, that's what I plan to do, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do, if that makes sense I've taken small steps already, but they are currently not life changing nor are they things that can go wrong. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do the soul searching, but for me there's other limitations aswell, wich I need to keep in mind, but that's currently what I'm trying to figure out, where I can go from here on.

[Raburesu]

Rabureseu, sounds like you wanted to make a radical change to your life, but maybe it was one for the worse?

Was it a time when you got tired of it all and decided to throw it all way? Did you feel like they were all against you, or that all of them didn't care of you?

Yes, change was the goal, though it did not end up materializing in the way I'd envisioned. That doesn't necessarily mean that I feel it ended up badly, but what did happen was of course the lesser desired outcome. At that time, I was lonely in a crowd. Now, there is no crowd, but I remain lonely. So, to all intents and purposes, nothing has really changed at all.

I suppose. And no, of course they weren't against me. It's just that some had betrayed me in the past, some became individuals that I grew to dislike, and the rest were simply no longer worth my time. Doesn't seem like I discarded anything of value in hindsight.

[Beoran]

Danyo, it's good to hear that you're making some progress. Let me give you a virtual pat on the shoulder: *pat* .

Raburesu, I can't help wondering though. You say that nothing of value was lost, but at the same time is it corect you're unhappy about what happened? Forgive my wild guess at it, but would you say that you lost something in yourself? Or perhaps or that something in yourself was damaged, or changed for the worse?

Kind Regards,
B.

[Exbando]

If I'm allowed to, I'd like to join in this conversation. I hate being around people (except for my few friends). Even when I'm at work, I avoid other people at all costs. Since we're allowed to listen to music, I just blast my music so that I can't hear anybody, and that they realize that it's a waste of time to try and talk to me. When I was in Elementary school, I was always made fun of for being short, having freckles, and having braces. When Middle school rolled around, it turned out that I had some sort of Kidney disease (I don't recall the name, it was really complicated), and I had a prescription of Prednisone to take every day for the nest few years. One of the side effects caused my cheeks to get bigger, which made everybody start calling me "Chubby Cheeks" or "Chipmunk" all the time. I even went to the counselor about it, and nothing changed. When I got into High School, I decided to join the Marching Band to try and be slightly more social. My Freshman year, I just was kinda there for practice, and during breaks, I would sit by myself and try to test other people. My thinking was "If they see me sitting here by myself, are they going to sit by me?" That answer was no. My Sophomore year, I was much more social. I was eating with people, laughing with them, etc., etc. When I got into my Junior year, I thought that I was being too social, so I backed off. It was like I was a Freshman again. When Senior year came around, I quit the Marching Band (partially due to stress). It was then that I was able to hang out with the few friends that I had made in Middle School (all 3 of them). We decided to start playing Magic: the Gathering during lunch, which only caused the other people to make fun of us. This didn't really phase my friends, but I was getting angrier by the second. And now, two years after graduating High School, am I just now realizing how bad my depression is getting (to the point of me thinking things like "You should just kill yourself, who's going to notice?") At least I have enough common sense to not follow through on those thoughts. I haven't really been able to talk about this until just now. It feels good to get this off of my chest. Sorry for the wall of text, I think all of that really needed to be said.

[danyo]

If I'm allowed to, I'd like to join in this conversation. I hate being around people (except for my few friends). Even when I'm at work, I avoid other people at all costs. Since we're allowed to listen to music, I just blast my music so that I can't hear anybody, and that they realize that it's a waste of time to try and talk to me. When I was in Elementary school, I was always made fun of for being short, having freckles, and having braces. When Middle school rolled around, it turned out that I had some sort of Kidney disease (I don't recall the name, it was really complicated), and I had a prescription of Prednisone to take every day for the nest few years. One of the side effects caused my cheeks to get bigger, which made everybody start calling me "Chubby Cheeks" or "Chipmunk" all the time. I even went to the counselor about it, and nothing changed. When I got into High School, I decided to join the Marching Band to try and be slightly more social. My Freshman year, I just was kinda there for practice, and during breaks, I would sit by myself and try to test other people. My thinking was "If they see me sitting here by myself, are they going to sit by me?" That answer was no. My Sophomore year, I was much more social. I was eating with people, laughing with them, etc., etc. When I got into my Junior year, I thought that I was being too social, so I backed off. It was like I was a Freshman again. When Senior year came around, I quit the Marching Band (partially due to stress). It was then that I was able to hang out with the few friends that I had made in Middle School (all 3 of them). We decided to start playing Magic: the Gathering during lunch, which only caused the other people to make fun of us. This didn't really phase my friends, but I was getting angrier by the second. And now, two years after graduating High School, am I just now realizing how bad my depression is getting (to the point of me thinking things like "You should just kill yourself, who's going to notice?") At least I have enough common sense to not follow through on those thoughts. I haven't really been able to talk about this until just now. It feels good to get this off of my chest. Sorry for the wall of text, I think all of that really needed to be said.

I'm not gonna try to tell you what to do or anything, but, it's good you shared this, it at least makes you clear your head a bit doesn't it? Also good to read you aren't giving in to those thoughts, it's a dark path when you start to do so, and not a pleasant one at all ( I've been there before ).

I can't really say anything more then that, even though I've been a pretty lonely and withdrawn person, I never had to deal with bullying or anything like that since, well, I've always been well build and big so It seems you do still have some friends left though, have you considered asking them how they deal with it? ( assuming they were the friends you played magic with )

[Swoopie]

Yeah, it does tell more about her then anything ( I kinda said it wrong aswell, she actually didn't tell me she had someone else, she said she needed some time apart, a friend of mine told me she said she had a new relationship on facebook, and when I asked her about it she just admitted it and that was pretty much all that was said ). But, yes, it's pretty much like dunkelfalke sais, fear for being hurt again for me. I know life cannot be without hurt, but for me, by being lonely, I can at least choise my own hurt, and I can escape from it partially ( by playing video games, watching anime, reading a book though I haven't done that in a while... ) but it all comes back to you usually, for me it's often right before going to sleep, wich causes me to not sleep much at all. I'm probably hurting right now, but, it's not as bad as it could be, it's not like I'm tired of living ( though I've lost my fear of dying a while ago, if that makes sense ).

But is it really your own choice? Because that girl let you down (and possibly others as well), you 'choose' to live your life away from other people. How is that your choice? You actually choose to let previous experiences, mainly things done by OTHER people, define your life, while it would be better (at least in my opinion) to take matters in your own hand and go search for the happiness of sharing with other people. Is it perhaps a choice of perpetual 'moderate' hurt versus potential sharp big hurts?

Well... I don't know about others, but I don't really see the harm in talking about it, especially online where no one knows you anyway. It's not that hard for me to describe how I feel, because it's pretty much the only thing I do feel these days.

That's indeed the convenience of the Internet, being able to anonymously express your feelings. Kind of an interesting dilemma though, is talking about it here, on the forum, prolonging your loneliness or is it decreasing your loneliness?

[Swoopie]

It is just there, after many years and many failures. You know it the same way you know tomorrow the sun will go up or the gravitation force will continue to exist.

This is hard for me to understand, although I do understand a bit. Even after numerous failures (how do you define failure?), how do you know there is literally noone there to talk with? How can you be sure that they're not just hard to find instead of being completely absent, without trying to find those people? What kind of failures makes you believe that?

Not the biggest maybe, but a large one. You see, I know that there is something wrong with me, and that I am a mess in my head. And that I forgot how to talk to people. And I am ashamed of myself. Worthless. A failure on almost every level. Who would even want to talk to me?
This is the way the train of thoughts goes.

Ok, hope I'm not going all 'Dr. Phil' too much, but here's that knowledge again. You 'know' something is wrong with you? How so? What IS wrong with you then? Can I ask you to explain that?

The other fear is to be hurt again.

But, clearly, that fear doesn't keep you from posting here right? Even now, I could say something completely mean to you (if I would want to) and although it's on the Internet, that could hurt you, in a way. But you seem to be willing to take that risk. Why not take that further a bit and 'go out there'?

You see, you don't start that lonely, you get there with time. You hide inside yourself after other people hurt you. But then, years get behind, you hurt a bit less, want to come out and find yourself unable to. It has been too long, you don't know anyone, you don't know anymore how to meet people in first place, you don't have that many opportunities anymore due to a full time job. Nobody cares about your nice personality hidden deep behind all the cruft and mess. And here we come to the third fear.

I keep repeating myself, but there ARE people out there who will care. It will just take effort from their part to look past your 'mess' and it will take effort from you (and a certain amount of protecting yourself) to let them in. Yes, you might get hurt, but you might also gain something worth that risk. And looking at it from a more grim side, you're already hurt pretty badly, can it really get any worse?

The fear of change. You see, being lonely sucks, but when you have lived through it for long enough, you don't know anything else anymore. It starts being a comfort zone, for an extremely perverted sense of the word "comfort". It is far easier just to stop being yourself for a while reading a visual novel, living the lives of virtual personalities, with all the social interactions that come with it.

You don't know anything else anymore? Aren't you missing the 'anything else' part? Like I said before, isn't it worth the risk?

[Swoopie]

If I could give some insight, I'd say the inability to accept disappointment is more dominating than than the fear of rejection. Or perhaps it's a soul-destroying combination of the two. It's like seeing a place that's hiring, but you choose not to apply, even though you really want to. You don't know whether or not you'll get the job, but the possibility of failure completely destroys any resolve you had to go for it anyway. Like trying to make a friend, if the attempt does turn out badly, you'll be left even more dejected than when you started.

I beg to differ here, ofcourse the rejection of that friend will hurt, but you'll also gained some extra insight, learned something. The fact that the other person rejected you just tells you it wasn't a good match, not that there's something bad about you.

When one tries to encapsulate their feelings into words, they often fail, even if only slightly. I speak of being understood without the use of words. Finding a person who can do that for you is very difficult indeed.

There's that 'failure' word again. How can something you tried be a failure? It's like saying, ok guys, I tried to do this very difficult math formula, I don't really understand it, but I tried. But, because I didn't get it right in one go, I'll just stop trying altogether, because I suck at math. Just keep trying!

I never expected talking about a fictional character from an eroge playing a game on the floor to shift to a serious discussion about loneliness,

Yeah, sorry about that

but I'm definitely not complaining that there's something meaningful to talk about. It's cathartic for some people to talk about their feelings, after all. Um. I mean "feels." Heh.

There's sure a lot of typing happenin' here in this thread