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The angry conservative lady video was interesting to me, but I find all that rage kind of upsetting and even a little frightening. I have a real problem with absolute conviction, which makes discussion of serious issues a real problem for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm defined by self-doubt, so when confronted by someone so certain that they possess the truth, I have difficulty responding. I also would quite like everyone in the entire world to like me, and pointlessly spend time wondering about all the complete strangers who wouldn't. In this case, the woman is outright furious with those politically aligned with her but who didn't fight hard enough; god knows what she'd think of me. I have no reason to care, but I do. So that's another reason I find it an uncomfortable watch. But sometimes uncomfortable things are worthwhile. Don't quote that out of context.

You've read Captain Awkward before, right? Right??

That's actually pretty relevant to a situation I'm trying to wade my way out of at the moment. A not-especially brief summary:

I met someone abroad. We got on well. We maintained frequent contact. We met up; it became a (long-distance) relationship (the first I'd had for a long while). We had two more holidays together, but during the last her feelings had obviously cooled, to the point where there were several really awkward (as in borderline terrible) days during which she was barely even speaking. It obviously wasn't working; I eventually got her to talk, and she voiced her concerns, which I acknowledged (clearly things weren't going well), but I was childishly reluctant to give up completely. She said she didn't want to end it there and then, and that it wouldn't be right to do so at a distance, so she'd reassess next time we met. I went home feeling pretty weird, and kind of knowing it was doomed, but hanging on nevertheless. She became less and less responsive to my daily texts, which played on my mind a great deal, until I decided to stop contacting her if only to see how long it would take her to message me without prompting. That afternoon sent me a message saying it was obvious we should just be friends (I guess she'd changed her mind about breaking up by text message). I knew it was over, and that it was right for it to be over, but I still had a pretty significant sense of loss; it hadn't worked, but it had come close enough to working that I really didn't want to let go, and my pessimism made me fearful of even getting that close to things working again (and it still does). Anyway, she did say she wanted to stay friends, and that she wanted things to be as they were before, which I appreciated. I do want to keep her as a friend, and enjoy being around her, even if in a non-romantic capacity. Since then, however, she's returned to being very uncommunicative. At first I was sending messages every day, which was almost certainly a mistake, but that was how things had been before we were an item, which is what she said she wanted. Anyway, her failure to respond was really getting to me, so I decided I should take a step back and give her some space. I think that lasted for about a week (although it could have been shorter – time expands horrendously when you're obsessing over something) before I lost my nerve and sent her a long message asking what was going on, and offering the numerous explanations that had occurred to me during all my obsessing: that she was bored of me, that she needed some time, that I was just messaging her too much and should lay off a bit, that she had a new boyfriend and didn't consider contact with me appropriate, and so on. I said I just wanted an explanation so I would know what was going on and how I should act. It was definitely a slightly crazy message, and probably a big mistake.

Anyway, about a week after that she did contact me, and seemed bright and cheerful and nothing was wrong, and as far as I remember no mention of the crazy message was made by either of us. My mood was lifted hugely. Then, a few days after that she got back in touch and said she could speak for five minutes, which we did, and she promised we'd speak later in the week. That was two weeks ago. I'd been waiting for her to get in touch with me again, but I lost my nerve a few times, and feel myself coming perilously close to sending a crazy e-mail or something. I've considered telling her that if this is what friendship with her is, I don't think I can take it, but that's probably a horrible guilt-trip and completely unreasonable – I have friends I can go for weeks or even months without hearing from without problem – and besides, I don't think I want to burn that bridge anyway. But I obviously need to move on and stop being so emotionally dependent on someone I'm not even in a relationship with any more. When I think about it, I don't even understand why it bothers me so much. I have other friends, and managed OK before I even knew her. Have I not really accepted that we've broken up? I feel like I have. I think it relates back to what I was saying about the video: I want everyone to like me, and when I don't hear from her I suspect it's because she doesn't like me, even though she's told me that isn't the case. Some part of me thinks she's just being kind, but really she secretly can't stand to even talk to me, and she hopes I'll just forget about her and go away. In actual fact, what's probably happening is she's just busy having a life like a proper person while I obsess pathetically.

I imagine the standard prescription is to go out, have fun, and try to keep occupied. I am being more active, and particularly trying to actually do things during my weekends rather than just fritter them away, but my social circle is fairly small and consists of fairly like-minded people, so I often feel like I don't have many options. If I'm honest, that's because I rule a whole bunch of stuff out as stuff I just don't want to do, but that's a whole other issue.

Anyway, I do feel like I'm kind of very gradually moving on and coping better and being less upset by this whole silly situation (which I'm sure is nothing to proper people with healthy lives and so on), but that link did seem very relevant to the whole thing.

I don't know. Stupid life.

Oh, one last thing: before fully embarking on this whole thing, I did voice some concerns about the whole long-distance thing at another forum, and one particularly depressing person told me not to bother because she'd only break my heart. I'd like it to be known that, despite the emotional fallout, I don't regret it for a moment. Our first holiday together, which was only a weekend, was very special to me. We didn't do a great deal; we mainly just enjoyed being together. I want that feeling back, but I'm glad just to have had it.

(Let's forgo the Tennyson quote.)

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Yeah, the crazy message is probably never the right thing to send. It feels like you have sorted this out pretty much and are putting it down here in order to commit to it. I'd say you're on the right track. Long distance is way complicated and needs pretty specific people and a lot of dedication to work. Move on, sir. Even if the friendship breaks. The odds are that after having any sort of romantic relationship, you can never have what you had before in a friendship. At least, not as far as I have ever experienced.

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Bugger. Oh well. What I'd really like (assuming we genuinely can't maintain a friendship) is an opportunity to say goodbye and put a lid on it, leaving things on good terms, but perhaps that's not the way to go.

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Not necessarily expressing an opinion one way or another, but something I have thought about recently is whether the idea of closure or resolution in the form of one specific "goodbye" event is actually kind of a narrative trap. It might be something we think makes sense logically, and certainly often makes for better stories, but the slow drifting apart without a deliberate break might actually be the more human way to "end" non-romantic relationships.

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Saying goobye is a bit dramatic though. If you just leave it as is, then by the time it turns out she really has moved on and isn't interested in being friends anymore, you won't give a shit either. Possibly.

Edit: What Gwardinen said.

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Probably right, but from my current perspective, that seems rather sad.

But yes, I need to get to a state where it doesn't really matter what the outcome is.

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It sounds like your daily texts would have made her feel you were still obsessing over her. I don't see any reason why you can't salvage a friendship from this, but you're probably going have to just forgo initialising any contact with her for a while.

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Probably so. I still feel a bit put-out that she said we'd talk later that week and didn't (after the obsessive daily texts stopped), but that isn't actually a big deal, and just seems like it is because I need to sort myself out and so on.

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Probably so. I still feel a bit put-out that she said we'd talk later that week and didn't (after the obsessive daily texts stopped), but that isn't actually a big deal, and just seems like it is because I need to sort myself out and so on.

Girls do this, in my experience, because they think it makes you feel better. It doesn't. I hate it.

"Stupid life." I agree.

Good luck.

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I think people do it for a myriad of reasons. Like when it comes around to when you'd said you'd call someone, you really don't feel like it. Or you're busy. Or you're tired.

It's annoying, but that's people for you.

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Wait until you're in a place where you can respond with a level head and not with the giddy joy of finally hearing back from her, but yes. Finding that place may take ten minutes or a couple days, though.

On my own end, I broke up with my long-distance girlfriend over the phone yesterday. I thought it over and decided I couldn't stand to wait two months to tell her a choice I'd already made. The conversation lasted nearly five hours as she cycled through emotions, at the end of which I was exhausted myself, but in sum I think it was the right thing. My only regret is allowing myself to be put on self-harm watch for her, but she is my friend as much as she was my girlfriend and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to her, whatever my role in the matter.

Hopefully tomorrow she can go see her therapist and we can start giving each other some space for healing to take place. Ugh. This never gets easier.

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I think people do it for a myriad of reasons. Like when it comes around to when you'd said you'd call someone, you really don't feel like it. Or you're busy. Or you're tired.

It's annoying, but that's people for you.

It might be me, but I've only seen girls doing it. I'm sure it's a thing people do, though.

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Lost a cat last night. Damn thing ate a bunch of thread a couple of days ago (I didn't realize immediately). We were fortunate enough to find a vet on a Father's Day Sunday, and he operated and took out the thread. He seemed pretty confident, but in the end the cat never really woke up properly from the operation and died around 4am. Feels pretty bad. The cat has a brother who's now at my parents, who have a dog, so he doesn't get lonely. He was always the difficult one, needed a lot of action to stop boredom, so I don't feel like I can keep him alone at my place.

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I entered a text adventure I wrote earlier this year into the latest IFComp. The voting just finished and it ended up placing 15th out of 28. The game, though silly, has a lot of personal significance for me, and I'm a little bummed that people didn't like it more. On the other hand, there isn't really anything I'd change about it. So I guess by my own standards I should consider it a success? I dunno. It just sucks to put a lot of work and time and emotional energy into a project that means something to you and get it into a state where you think it's pretty good, only to have the internet turn around and go "meh, 5/10."

Anyway, now that I work for an adventure game company, that's probably the end of my writing text adventures as a hobby. So that was a fun ride, I guess.

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Well, it depends on the level of quality of the other entries whether yours was graded with 5/10. Maybe that's quite excellent according to this year's level.

Why should you stop making text adventures, btw, now that you work at Telltale? Is that a company policy thing against competition? Or just because you can unleash your creativity on 'the real thing', for lack of a better term?

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I dunno, doing the same thing you do at work as a hobby probably doesn't really work.

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I think technically they would own any game I make while I'm working for them. Not that I expect to make any money off text adventures, but it could probably be seen as a conflict of interest of some sort. I don't know if anyone would actually care, but I don't really want to test it. (Also, what brkl said. Even though the process of writing a text adventure is pretty different from what I do at work, the prospect of making games in my spare time is still less exciting when I've just come home from making games all day at work.)

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Ugh.. Sorry to hear. Have you checked whether you can replace that yourself?

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