A toxic, failed raltionship ending in 2018 marked the start. Don't fall in love with mentally unstable teenage girls. (context, I was 16 when it ended)
The constant failing at finding another at parties, on multiple dating apps - around 100 matches, about 10 progessed past 8 messages, none resulted in a meeting; on discord servers - debatable, at least I made 2 girl friends which I talked to for a couple of months, but also got catfished by a weird 15 yo kid looking to get a collection of dick picks using the profile pic of "the hottest girl in his highschool"; starting uni during the pandemic, after essentially isolating myself from most of my previous friends during the relationship, which meant by the time I got to physically meet any of my colleagues everyone else knew each other and was fine with only interacting with that group. Also tried and failed to talk to a girl in my class before the physical courses started.
As Uni went on, it got increasingly more disappointing. First year, the maths and economics classes at least felt like I was learning something useful, and I hoped at some point I would get to interact with some of the people in my specialization's group. Due to projects, I did. Projects which were a big part of the disappointment of University - I swear my 7th grade projects for chemistry were more difficult, interesting and required higher levels of "refinement" on the projects (aka at least animating your slides, and not reading all of the information in your project off of them). Both the implication and abilities of my peers were shockingly depressing to me for the most part. Giving up on the opening slide, complaining about the (middle school level) requirements of projects, the impressively lacking problem-solving abilities of half of the people I was working with, were all depressing.
There were some exceptions to the rule, and I respect and appreciate the people that DID help and show competence and interest in what we were supposed to do, but they were depressingly few.
Second year, the subjects got less relevant, and due to the exams being multiple choice question sheets, I basically stopped going to them, and it barely reflected in my grades. Accounting was the exception, and I would continue to fail it until present, but given the fact that just about less than half of students failed it didn't make me stress TOO much about it.
About this time - 1st semester of 2nd year - I got recruited by a local WoW guild. We were kinda struggling to get Ahead of The Curve, but the atmosphere was really enjoyable. We also went out for drinks a couple of times, and it felt really funny to be called "Stinky" irl as well. Things were becoming enjoyable, and despite me renting a sh!thole with no access to the outside air.
My uncle took me to the gym for a few weeks around this time, and I was wondering if those interactions were how normal father-son relationships worked. (I'm pretty sure a lot of stepdads are closer with their sons than I am with my blood-father).
I also started reading great fiction books like TBATE, The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound, Cataclysm Rising, Supreme Magus, Legend of the Arch Magus and after reaching the current chapters of each of those, decided to try my hand at writing as well. (I recommend them, they're my favourites*until about chapter 800 for Supreme Magus, until book 11 of Legend of the Arch Magus*)You can read my mediocre attempt on this site, though don't expect anything good.
But then, as life does - I compare it to a tectonic plate, just because bad shit doesn't happen to you for a while you shouldn't get comfortable, the pressure is just building until the world is shaking and crumbling around you.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
I got to a point in my balding journey at which my at the time long hair was starting to look like an insult to barber shops so I shaved it off, got chronic prostatitis, started getting even more regular infections in my toenails - which in turn made me actually stop going to uni except for the exams, learned that my ex hadn't just cheated with 1 guy during our relationship, got the worst project-making experience yet, I realized that my hope that any still-single woman can be a respectable human being is a childish delusion, and other little things that I subconsciously removed from my easily accessible memory.
But then the adult I'd respected the most in my life, my grandmother, got sick. After a week in hospital, there wasn't anything they could do, so they let the family take her home for her last days. Hearing a loved one yell "Let me die!" is... something. I have no idea what exactly, other than anger, sadness and disappointment I'm not really capable of identifying what I feel. That is the reason I couldn't continue writing either, I wanted to make the world of Protea feel at least moderately believable and alive, and I'm personally not capable of describing human interactions and feelings below surface level. When normal people would feel something other than those three in my position, I just get physically cold, my thoughts are empty, and I just float there until whatever made me feel that way passes.
I also started feeling a bit overwhelmed by uni, failing a couple subjects and blaming myself a lot. I still feel like I'm the luckiest person I know, I am capable of doing a lot of things if I put my mind to it, but... I don't see any point. Especially since AI exploded and went mainstream, taking jobs left and right. I'm sure in 5 years, every job that requires less than 10 years of experience will get done by some GPT. The job market sucks even without that. Birth rates are plummeting because companies are no longer even pretending to give a fk about workers, so they need to work longer hours for the same pay, while the cost of living is visibly ascending month to month. This means retirement funds are getting progressively more fucked, so even if I start working, suffering through idiotic bosses and even more idiotic clients/colleagues, I will have less than any generation before me to show for it when I retire. The goal used to be create a home - a living space, and a woman that would love and support you, and maybe a child or two for your legacy.
But... today? The political state of the world is what it is, house prices are growing at a rate that will make them mathematically impossible to purchase within 30 years with a less-than-executive-position salary, every woman that isn't gold-digging or got a body count in the triple digits is in a long term relationship already, and even if I won the jackpot and somehow got both a space to live on my name and a decent woman to love and share it with, bringing a new life into this world would be the most sadistic thing I could do.
Even if all else was fine, nuclear weapons, solar flares, asteroids and neutron stars still exist. We can't pretend there aren't 10 other far more dangerous strands of covid in the same lab that it came from, not to mention every single other classified lab in the world. And I am convinced we are somehow going to go through at least 1 catastrophe from these sources before 2050. The best future possible is living underground or on Mars before I would retire.
The reason I wrote this is because my hobbies are starting to fail at keeping my thoughts away. The gym and music aren't walling it completely anymore. Every time I return from outside I just stand there, between 10 to 40 minutes, thinking how shit everything is. At this point life is just walking in complete darkness, waiting for the edge of the void to fall into. The plan for the future is waiting out my mother's life then following her immediately after.
If you read this far, I appreciate it and I'm sorry I don't have the energy to edit this mess.
