seriousjay

So I finally finished my first short story! It's about my trip to Dubai. This is pretty significant for me and I'm not really sure how to celebrate it.. lol.

Thanks for your response! To be honest, I have no desire to interact with just about anything video game related for any reason at this point, nor will I ever have such a desire again. I said long ago that video games have no place in the life I want to build for myself, and that has not changed. Do I miss them sometimes and reminisce about the "good old days"? Sure. There was even one day where I really regretted not playing Fallout 4's Far Harbour expansion again (even typing this brings up some nostalgic feelings). That reminds me of two sayings: there will always be another game, and there is no such thing as "one last time", because you will never be satisfied. There was one time in my life where I told myself "ok, that's enough, I'm satisfied with this one". I even genuinely felt that at the time - I was not lying to myself. That was when I completely beat Fallout 4 and all expansions. Guess what? I came back to it later. More than once. So glad to have all that behind me. ?

Hey guys, I know I haven't posted in a while but I honestly haven't felt any need to. Maybe it's still early to feel this confident, but I am at the point where I feel I have crushed video game addiction beneath my feet and am now moving in a positive direction in every aspect of my life. I've ran into obstacles here and there but I've always found a way to overcome them. So.. this post will likely serve as a farewell to Game Quitters. I may still pop by from time to time and see if I can offer anything to this community that has done so much for me. It's the least I can do for having been given control of my life back. There are still challenges to overcome but I KNOW I can overcome those as well. It's no longer a question of if. Thanks everyone, especially @Cam Adair for creating this amazing platform.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! May 2019 be filled with great successes on all your personal journies. I didn't post about it before I left but I've been abroad for the last two and a half weeks, including a short 10 day trip to the UAE. I took some time during this period to really consider what to do with my career and I've decided that becoming an author is the direction I want to take. School was the other option but I decided that I just have way too many doubts about that path. It's a huge commitment and I have to be absolutely sure that it's one that I want to make, and I simply don't have that certainty. Every time I go through the thought process for this, I always end up back at "author". If there's anything I would say I have a passion for, that would be it. So, I have to try it. I'm going to start by writing a short story about my trip to the UAE. It should be a fun ride!

After a couple of days of stressing the hell out over my dating situation, I've decided to follow the advice of meditation: relax, take a deep breath, tune into the moment and stop worrying. I have a new motto: When in doubt, turn to meditation lessons.

These are all very good points that I will have to keep in mind. Another one: nobody felt sorry for me when I was going through this whole thing, and it's not my obligation to change anyone. All it really comes down to is: do I enjoy spending time with this person? If the answer is yes, then I guess the rest can be worked out somehow.

I've watched so many of these things and I've decided that, aside from general rules of thumb that are typically applicable in all situations, like grooming yourself well, being polite to people, allowing others to shine in a conversation, etc. etc., these "how-tos" are so over-dramatized and overblown that they make situations that happen in movies look realistic at times. Every single person on this planet is unique. Every single person will react differently to specific stimuli. Hell, how ready someone is to receive what you have to offer is a huge factor. A person can react one way to something you say or do, and 6 months later, you could have the exact same scenario and get a completely different reaction. I've pretty much decided that the best rule to follow is simply to be yourself and allow the dominoes to fall as they may. I want to heavily stress that I DO NOT believe this means I don't have things to work on and improve. That "yourself" that I'm talking about has to constantly get better and better. That comes with time and especially experience, and being able to identify the areas that need to be worked on and actually taking steps to do so. All that being said, that video is actually pretty good. Easily the best one I've seen on this subject. Thanks for sharing. EDIT: One thing I disagree with though is the idea that if you ran into the perfect girl and were unsuccessful in making her your girlfriend, it isn't because you fucked up. It's because you weren't ready. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time, but one or several skills were lacking. It's up to you to identify what needs to improve for the next time and to actually work on that.

Yeah I dunno. She is definitely introverted. Getting her to talk at all was very hard work lol. The phone thing definitely could have been nervousness.. or even just a matter of having no idea what else to do. Explanation below. Yeah it's a little hard to really get a good read from a description of what happened lol. To your second point, like I mentioned before, I have very little life experiences beyond video games so I do rely on other people at times to give me a sense of which direction to take things. That being said, I do not see myself as a typical dude. I WANT people I hang out with to guide things along at least as much as I'm happy to take the reins myself. I WANT to get to know people, what they like to do, etc. This is especially true of a significant other. I don't want to date someone that's simply going to wait for me to do everything. I'm happy to make the plans, but I want to know what they like to do as well, and engage in those activities. What the fuck is the point of a relationship if it doesn't go two-ways? ----- Now on to the aftermath. I am simply extremely confused now. She texted me today to say that she wanted to give it another chance, that she thinks I'm a really great guy, and that she "really really wants this to work". OK. I believe her. Although the way this is all going makes me think that she's even more clueless than I am about how to actually date people. She told me she's never had a relationship last more than 2 months, and she's 30 years old now. When I asked her why, she said she gets bored easily. When I asked her before what she wants to do, what kind of passions she has in life, she says she has none. When I asked her what she's looking for in a relationship and what types of things she'd want from a boyfriend, she said she doesn't know. It's as if she simply lacks a soul, she has no fire burning inside her for some kind of purpose in life. I actually find this really sad because it reminds me of how I was before I started my game quitting journey. Interestingly though, she told me she feels she's addicted to video games herself. I didn't actually believe her because she didn't strike me as having the typical symptoms of it, but now I'm beginning to think there's more to that. The funny thing is I have always thought that it wouldn't be a bad thing for me to date someone exactly like this. I've conquered video game addiction, among other things, and I always thought it would be a great challenge and also an excellent bonding opportunity to help someone else overcome the same types of things. So that part of it doesn't actually faze me. I won't deny that there is definitely a selfish element to this: I would feel extremely proud to successfully help someone through such challenges. It at least appears that I might get my chance. Anyways, we have another date planned for next weekend. I guess we'll see how things go then.

So tonight I went on a second date in two nights with one girl. Last night went alright - not good, not bad, just alright - she isn't really much of a talker, at all, so I really struggled to get her to talk about anything, but we finally did have some decent conversation about whatever. Tonight we were heading out to play some board games with a group of friends, and I suggested to her to meet up earlier and we could spend some time playing a board game that I brought, which she agreed to (she said that she was more comfortable spending time doing stuff so that seemed to be an easy way to keep things casual). She ended up not wanting to play the board game and seemed to be more interested in finding out when everyone else was coming, constantly on her phone. She told me she was really excited to see me and that she had a great time last night, so I don't know if I was just expecting way too much or what. If we're going on a date, I would expect for you to at least put your phone away and attempt to engage with me. Even if you're not necessarily in your element, at least make the effort. I get that I'm not that great a conversationalist just yet, with the vast majority of my life experiences being of video games. That's something that's just going to take time to work out. I ended up telling her that this didn't really seem like it was going to work out. I dunno.. part of me feels like I gave up too soon, but I just wasn't really feeling it at all. Even if we continued seeing each other, I just didn't see a way that either of us would be really satisfied. You're not going to click with that many people and I get that, so maybe all I really need to take from this is using it as a learning experience. I'm very much open to any feedback regarding this.

Man don't I know it when it comes to the last part. I can definitely appreciate not wanting to get married and have kids. It takes up so much time and effort. But I love it. It took some getting used to with having Julia around but I really appreciate her and Damian being in my life. I can only imagine the joy raising my own kids will bring me.

Ah, fair enough! Yeah, for me, getting married and starting a family are very important. However, I know that finding the right person is going to take time and effort. So I need to put a conscious effort towards meeting a lot of people and getting to know them at least a little bit. It's impossible to say where the right person is going to come from so I cannot close the door on any possibility really.

What "stuff" are you referring to? Online dating and such?

Well I think in my particular situation there wasn't really a whole lot of chemistry. I think the biggest thing I've learned from this experience is that I cannot be too picky with who I meet with for now. I need to develop this particular skill which simply means to keep meeting women.

So my date turned out to be nothing interesting at all. It wasn't much more than just two people meeting each other for the first time. I'm starting to realize that my perception about dating is likely very warped, and that I need to practice this skill in order to become more interesting going forward.

Day uh.. something it doesn't really matter anymore. So I was still having problems with watching too much Netflix. I decided I needed to do the same thing as what I did with Match and force myself to not allow myself to be consumed by it. As soon as I really committed to that the cravings for it died down quite a bit. It was a lot harder with Netflix because I was already pretty consumed by it in the past and Star Trek has a bit of a video game feel to it. I'm looking forward to putting this past me in any event. Also, on Wednesday I am going on my first ever date with a girl. I've decided not to have any expectations about this and just have fun with it. I will of course try to prepare myself to the best of my ability and just see what happens from there. It's pretty exciting either way!

So I do think changing things up a little bit today really helped. I think I've got a handle on things now. It's amazing how much of an impact just a small disruption can have.

While I do believe somewhat in visualizations I value just setting a goal and making it happen a lot more. Nothing drives motivation more than actually seeing your dreams come true. In any event, I can clearly see that I've started on the path back to relapse. So today I'm changing things up and going to my mom's house to read. I think getting out of the house will be very good for me to get back on track.

Maybe my reasons just aren't strong enough anymore. Reminding myself of why I'm doing it doesn't seem to help much.. lol.

Day 97. Yesterday I had a ridiculously intense craving for junk food when I went to the grocery store. I managed to resist it though. I've been thinking about games a decent amount the last couple of days and I wonder if that's starting to drag my previous habits back to the surface. To be honest though, the last couple of days I've missed the games. I know it'll pass in time but it does suck a bit.

Day 94. I started putting together a weekly schedule for myself last night. I feel like there isn't enough structure in my day and it's causing me to lose focus and get distracted too easily. Gratitude journal. I think I'll only do this once a week because every single day seems like I'll run out of things to be grateful for real quick. That does mean though that I'll need to put some real thought into what I put here! 1) Meditation. Slowly but surely I feel like it's really helping me become more grounded and appreciating each moment instead of constantly thinking about the past or future. 2) The gym. One of the main reasons why I'm slowly starting to look more and more like what I want to look like. I really have so much more confidence now because I feel better about the way I look and how I feel. 3) Game Quitters. Wouldn't be here without this forum!

Done! Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate on anything.

Made it to 90. Feel like I've only just gotten started!

Well I might as well post on day 90. Woohoo!

Day 89. Well I got some bad news today that I might need to completely replace my roof. I'll just have to deal with that later. I said I was going to start a gratitude journal but I realized today I kept forgetting to do that. So I'll start it now. 1. My contact lenses - can't believe what I was missing out on 2. My job - recent experiences have really reminded me how lucky I am to be in the position I am in 3. Can't think of anything else, I'm not really in much of a mood to be grateful

I went there because I had never done it before. I wasn't really expecting to find anything. I was HOPING to be able to sit down and chat with a nice girl, but the music was so blaring loud that I couldn't even hear people speak straight into my ear.