#obeekris

2. what’s your feel-good movie?

The Princess Bride!

3. what’s your favorite candle scent?

Vanilla? Rose? Definitely something soft and floral.

13. what’s your comfort food?

Either congee or pasta bake.

29. morning, afternoon or night?

what sort of board games?

I can’t really be an attendee, because I always feel like I need to make time for everyone, and that means there’s no time left for me to be a person. I tried to do that at GenCon a few years ago, even posting about how I was going just to game and to please respect that, and HOLY SHIT were too many people rude and entitled and not at all understanding. I felt like I was a Pokemon that all these people wanted to catch, and there wasn’t nearly enough respect for my boundaries and personal space.

That’s not to say that everyone was like that, but the ones who were really made it a bad time for me. If it was just another con, I don’t think it would bother me, but it’s like the best thing in gaming, in a culture I care deeply about, that is incredibly important to me, and I don’t feel like I can go there like a person, which is a giant bummer for me.

I can probably go if I’m working a booth for an afternoon, or if I’m in the autograph thingy, because then I’m there to work and I’m prepared to be a Pokemon, but even in that case, it’s exhausting and not fun, and I end up resenting being there because I just want to play games.

I know, cry me a river, Wheaton. Your show is so popular people just won’t leave you alone. Your life is really terrible. I’ll pray for you.

Are you talking about online conversations, or in person? 'Cause those are really 2 different forms of communication. I'm not so great at online/chat program conversations, but pretty good IRL.

The thing is, even on the internet, it’s usually possible to tell someone who’s just bad at making conversation from someone who is passively expecting you to do all the work. I talked to some people who clearly weren’t very good at it but were doing their best, and I can respect that because it’s very much me in person. But the vast majority of people I talked to, at least, would be like “Hey” and you say “Hey” and then nothing. So you open a gambit, like you ask them a question about something in their profile, and then they respond with an exact answer and literally nothing more, no “And you?”, no add-on question or volunteered information, nothing to indicate they have an interest in conversation.

That’s someone who either isn’t that into you, is way too into talking about themselves, or doesn’t understand how people talk to one another. Whichever it is, I’m not going to expend a ton of time and energy finding out, because I don’t want to be with any of those three people. 

shinyblackbird replied to your post “missbuster replied to your post “Sam, do u know what mbti type u...”

This managed to simultaneously encourage and dismay me. On the one hand it’s reassuring that you (and so many other commenters) have had the same string of bland, time wasting, going-nowhere dates. But on the other... if it’s universal and not just me, then I don’t really have any chance of fixing it, do I? Ugh.

I mean, I don’t think there’s a fix, per se -- I think it’s just something you either are willing to deal with or you aren’t. And there’s 100% nothing wrong with being willing to put up with ten thousand dead-end conversations in order to find one really great one, that takes real perseverance. I just reached a point where it felt more like a job than something I did for fun or for any kind of eventual endgame, so I stopped.