Social Disease

Several years ago, I dumped all “social media” because it was doing more harm than good. I attempted to delete all that those systems would allow me to delete and just walked away, so to speak. But it has reared its ugly head again.

I play video games a lot, way too much actually. I strive to break my gaming time with chores; however, there are days like today in which my body rebels in pain making the likelihood of completing chores rather slim.

I got too invested in one game, so much so, that one community board interaction had me drop that game and all I had invested in it. Then I dove into another game that ended up being bought by a predatory company I’ve long disliked, so I dropped that one too.

Now, I’m in another game, and for the most part the people are extremely kind and far less “toxic” than the “free to play” games. However, I recently made the mistake of getting too involved in “community events”. I ended up creating a new Discord account and connecting to these communities, even though I was afraid of what may happen, and it happened. In short, in responding to someone else’s request for assistance, I felt left “twisting in the wind” as they baled with no explanation that made sense to me. My rage then felt rather dismissed in the community as if that’s just the way it is. However, I found it very unacceptable.

Now, I’m left wondering how to back out of all this to keep my time enjoyable, and I haven’t found an answer yet. For the last couple of days, I’ve played grumpy, and that’s not fun. Every request for help I ignore because I don’t want to get burned again. And on my end, I either refuse to ask for help or do not get responses to my requests for help, making me even more irritated. I feel ignored because I expressed my frustration.

I knew better. I knew all forms of “social media” end in more frustration than enjoyment. But I did it anyhow. I’m a fool. For all my years, I still make the dumbest mistakes. Now, I feel screwed. I’ve taken something I enjoyed and have tainted it with “social media”.

It’s depressing. I want to go back to my point of ignorance, to the point before I new all these chat channels and servers existed. However, without some strangely specific amnesia, that ain’t happening, so I remain sad.

Did I do this to myself subconsciously? If so, how could I know? Now that I’m stuck here, how can I compartmentalize those negative bits from potentially positive bits?

I don’t have answers. I want them but don’t hold hope that they’ll ever come. Instead, I’m infected with this disease while blindly grasping for a cure.