Notes

I looked forward to finishing my work just to work, but now I want to finish my work for what? it feels pointless because when I actually did have free time, I wanted nothing more than to spend time with you guys playing games or doing whatever

I have other friends than you guys obviously, but they tended to not play with me too much last semester after August; it would turn into something where I'd play valorant (or smash/fighting games) with them sometimes on Fridays/Saturdays

and then there's cod, which I haven't had fun with in a while, and now my cousins broke off ties with the guy from NY cause he was annoying LOL

now during real school, I had fun activities that were in-person. ahhh I remember now
playing video games during study hall with friends
one of my close friends bowling with me, playing guitar, even following me to some family/work parties

my brain has probably just been tricking me into thinking I can only have fun with her or you...so it hurts when you guys have fun without me (sounds selfish ik); it feels like I'm wanted but that she'd rather have anyone else to be with, someone who's more fun/interesting

this can *kind of* be disproved by the fact she spent the night of my birthday with almost exclusively me AND she had a good time, but afterwards it seemed like she'd rather play bedwars/stardew with other people (this is what I mean, it felt like she reacted more positively to faraz/matt while I was just sitting there)



ohh and I kind of reached a conclusion about me feeling like I can't do anything last week
see, I think I wanted to be good at games/know stuff about them because I wanted to impress everyone else...these games are our only form of interaction in these times, so my brain made me think I have to be better at them for you guys to like me
so much of it was subconscious though so I didn't even know


for now I'll do what I can with school, and if you guys aren't available then I'll try to find other ways to have fun (it's possible, I just had a hard time believing it because I spent so much of winter break with you guys)
we'll create great moments together, I just need to be patient, and eventually we can even do irl stuff
remember to invite me when that happens pls *evil smirk*

Sunday (Jan 17) - I was mostly fine because I was mostly on track with my schedule. Then I started getting anxious and palpitations came back. It was getting from daytime to nighttime and I desperately wanted to start and finish my english assignment. I expected my friends to come on to play minecraft, but for some reason I worried that they were gone. People weren't on responding too much during the day, which made me feel abandoned. Not to mention, K left our faction after the first day, and it looks like S and A will leave because they don't approve of our faction's leadership. I know there's more to life and having fun than this factions server, but it's hard because things are kind of going wrong. I worried that my friends weren't ever gonna play with me again (at least that's how it felt), even if I somehow finished my work in time to meet up with them. My mind shouldn't trick me like that though, I was busy during the day too, and schedules can be different at night or another day. It felt like I couldn't have fun without them, as my main source of fun on Friday/Saturday came from interacting with friends. I had a somewhat good time with K yesterday, though I feel empty thinking on it because others weren't there at the time. Since even at night yesterday not everyone was there, I was worried about this becoming a pattern where I just don't play with these people anymore. I'm scared of everybody's schedules and motives never lining up, and then I or they will be overtaken by homework to not get to interact with them again. This is the exact stuff I worried about the Sunday before school started. I have a common theme of worries coming back whenever I feel like I'm wasting my time. Piling homework on me adds to that so much, because I don't feel like I do it fast enough, and I then use what little time I have on genshin or something. I worry about my health and anxiety not improving, even if I try to believe that things are getting better. After all, bad days are just days that are bad, and this whole situation makes it hard to be cheerful. It's normal to feel off, though it doesn't feel normal to me and that's what bothers me.

calc grade fixed!

Monday (Feb 1) - I know how I felt earlier in the day, like I had no closeness with my friends. It was a lot of those same feelings like no one wanted me, except I knew I was *kind of* wanted but the feelings were more pronounced because there was this feeling like I lacked a "closeness" with anyone. I have a friend who I consider closer than others but it's not really on the same level between you and . Over quarantine we've been messaging about school stuff whenever needed and occasionally guitar stuff. At the beginning of the quarantine we played a lot of minecraft (mostly wynncraft with the hive on the side). Now idk what's happening, because a lot of the friendship wasn't as much about playing games together than it was talking about games and school irl, going bowling, going to parties, having guitar playing sessions, etc. Enough about him though. I was starting to feel abandoned later on Sunday when I stopped talking to friends once the afternoon ended and then I noticed my friends were hanging out together (in both groups). Brought up a lot of old feelings of not feeling wanted and me believing that I am closer friends with everyone than they are with me. Almost like I'm used as a buddy to play games with even though I will admit video games is about the #1 thing you can do now besides just chatting. Talking to you helps me realize something different. I still don't feel like I share some closeness because I know about better friends, but somehow my feelings about what I can do are different. Before I made a plan to do stuff like join vc when I can, etc, and just wait for irl moments where I could have even more fun and shine in ways that wasn't just trying to be good at competitive games. My feelings from last night and earlier today were that no matter what I do I can't achieve a closeness with anyone, which doesn't seem true, I just don't know who will respond positively to me. Again, it's just about jumping on whatever moments I can, making sure my friends know my feelings on where I stand. Right now, I feel like I CAN do something and I just gotta wait, which is exactly how I felt when getting over this last time! I started to ask myself what the difference was, and why my mind keeps flipping between what I believe. My guess is that it depends on the last experience I had with my friends. On days like Saturday Jan 9 or Friday Jan 15, where I have positive experiences with friends who seem to enjoy my presence, I feel like I have hope for the future to make things even better. On days like Monday Jan 4 or Monday Jan 18 or the end of last night (maybe even the beginning of last Saturday when the party was full), I feel like my friends want nothing to do with me and that there's little I can do to change that. To feel better in those bad situations I would tell myself to try to make things better but to also feel fine if I don't become close with these people, and that I would need to have fun in other ways. Problem is I wanted more than that, so "no friends + games on your own" feels empty and seems unsatisfying. I can try to feel better about this though.
At least I don't feel too bad about my game performance, because those fell into 2 categories. 1 was I want to be good so that my friends would like me because games were the only option. That category is what bothered me around the end of last year into the beginning of this year. I realized friends are friends though, and I got better at believing that people want me regardless because "we chillin" (in one person's words). The 2nd category is just me not wanting to be bad in general/feeling like I'm worse than others. With this one, I worried about it somewhat some weeks ago but I realized that it's a matter of experience and practice/warming-up. For example, I definitely feel like I'm smarter about genshin so there's not a lot to feel bad about that game apart from the banner being boring LOL and me not grinding the right way for artifacts or any other mats. I'm a lot better at bedwars because I can actually win solos even if I employ a kinda strange strategy (a little campy but nothing like I used to do). I can speedbridge too! Valorant...I was actually doing well in bronze a few weeks ago but I've been off my game with those icebox matches (though some good rounds came...I just hate playing there especially A site). Also those two kids were way more experienced than me in those matches a few weeks ago (where I was also rusty again lol) and took all the kills. Valorant is a matter of practice and not getting icebox or smurfs LOL. Again, I've improved from August to January, so there's no reason to believe I still can't improve.

Monday (Feb 15) - Things were going really well, after all there was a buildup to new genshin events, pulling characters (diona), and taking showers on new year's lol. I also wanted to try theater mechanicus and do the weekly stuff as usual. It doesn't feel like everyone's in sync today, which is interesting but disappointing. Guess I'll be waiting on the other two to do liyue act 3 and venti's story quest. Oh yeah hu tao banner should be nice + venti rerun soon (rosaria/fischl)? I hope for a zhongli rerun eventually. There will be more opportunities to do theater mechanicus and weekly stuff, including hard world quests, if that's what I'm looking for. Maybe things are hollow, maybe they aren't. I think the problem is I'm placing all my bets on growing closer with my friends, and this game is definitely a good way to do that, but I just keep getting scared that I either won't grow close enough (to be invited to irl events and such) or that I'll just be abandoned altogether. Makes me question how much I should be putting my desires into this friend stuff, as I like having fun with it, but I have to be aware that most friends are temporary. Thinking about this stuff ending someday really sucks, so it makes me wonder whether I am/should be "wasting" my time. In the end, I should probably just try to have fun with friends for now and enjoy life, as there's no guarantee which friends are keepers and even what new friends you might make.