Unopened and Unplayed Games

Just as a heads-up, this is very much a venting post and here's your warning not to read it.

When times were better I had both the money to drop on board game kickstarters I thought looked fun and a board game group that I expected to play them with. I thought the things I found interesting and looked fun were things I got to share with the people that I thought were friends because we'd known each other for decades and traveled together to Magic: the Gathering events and lent each other hundreds of dollars worth of cards with implicit trust in one another to protect and return these goods.

Things started unraveling as the first backed games came in. The Guilty Gear card game is a really innovative way to handle mechanics and there were people who also had deep histories with card games and their design that I wanted to share this innovative card game with. But it never came to be. I did play it a few times, but not with the people I was closest to. Other games I had bought sat completely unplayed.

The more rules light, open-ended board games that can adapt to higher numbers of players aren't my favorite. But those ended up played often because no one came to the meetup not to play with people, and so breaking out into two groups of four is more awkward than playing the game that goes to eight again. But I kept bringing things that max out in that four or five player range.

So in that sense none of it was my fault but on the other hand, no one wanted to make time for me. I could never convince anyone to be interested in the things I was interested in. Me saying this game looked cool wasn't a reason enough for anyone to try it.

My depression spiraled out of control and I stopped going. I muted the discords. I know no one owed it to me to check up on me but I wished it would happen. Instead it just fed the depression more that I don't belong. I don't matter to people. There's no point in sharing the things I enjoy because no one cares.

And more kickstarters came in. I have this giant pile of boxes that I have to walk around and most of them aren't even opened because I don't want to read the rules any more. I don't want to sleeve the cards or punch out the components because it'll hurt me more to do so.

Eventually, maybe, I'll chip away at tidying my study enough to put all of these on a shelf, but...

I don't know how to not feel isolated and superfluous and unwanted when I have the evidence here that I am.