My gaming PC broke the day I moved into my university dorm, and I didn’t get another one until like 4 years later.

The weirdest part was I kept thinking 3-year-old games were “new.”

My friend would talk about a game and I’d be like “wow yeah that’s the new one right?” and they’d say “it’s two years old now there’s a sequel”

Just checked out Quillnote, they’ve archived the repository as it’s inactive. Quillpad looks to be the main fork. I’ll check it out, thanks for sharing

I was feeling disconnected from my friends for quite a while. I find I have a hard time keeping up with people, and that usually ends up meaning I am no one’s best friend.

I’ve done two things:

1. Organised a (mostly) weekly poker night (not for money but for snacks). Any board game would work. It gets us in the same room and we have a grand old time. This is the highlight of my week. It really helped to have something to look forward to each week when I was feeling depressed and meaningless.
2. Started sending my two closest friends one (1) meme per day tailored to them specifically. It’s rare for me to message anyone, but this keeps me in contact, even if it’s basically like a poke on Facebook. It keeps me fresh in their heads. It usually ends up sparking a convo about this or that. It’s led to me being invited to a couple of fun events, which feels really nice, because for a while there I was barely invited to anything.

These two things, while simple, have greatly increased my mood and has gotten me much closer with my friends than I was before, as I had drifted apart from them.

Balatro could be good. Terraria I think is a bit tricky to learn unless you have a friend guiding you. It requires a lot of looking up the wiki which I think isn’t ideal for someone getting into video games.

It’s definitely worth trying if you’re interested.

I would not recommend buying a console or gaming PC first as that is a money sink that you’re not sure is worth it yet. My gaming PC broke when I arrived at university, and I got by playing less graphically intensive games on my standard laptop for a few years.

Good games I’d recommend to start with:

• Stardew Valley — cosy, charming farming game that you can play at your own pace. Has great characters that you get to know, and fun, simple, rewarding gameplay. My girlfriend got really into this game.
• Minecraft — this is where many of us started as kids. It’s an excellent game that’s fun for all ages. There isn’t a clear goal so it’s more about making your own fun.
• Vampire Survivors — extremely fun, simple, cheap, and addicting game. Play at your own risk.
• LIMBO — a puzzle game classic with a unique, dark aesthetic. Only takes a couple of hours to complete.
• INSIDE — made by the same people as Limbo. Grabbed me and wouldn’t let go for the whole 4 hour experience. I don’t play many puzzle games but I couldn’t get enough of this one. Probably because of the narrative.

Those can all be played on the average laptop or desktop anyone would have.

Best of luck on your journey! Feel free to reply with any questions or suggestions for specific genres and such. My girlfriend didn’t play video games until I introduced them to her, and the most important thing was that I didn’t try to force any games on her, just show her what there was and let her interest lead the way. So take a look at all the suggestions people are leaving and go with what interests you most. And if you’re not enjoying a game, it’s okay to go play a different one.

(Also, Steam provides free, no-questions-asked refunds for any games purchased that both 1) were bought less than 2 weeks ago, and 2) have less than 2 hours of game time. So you can always demo a game to see if you like it and return it easily if not.)

My jaw.

He has no skin

Oh God where is his skin

Fear is the mind-killer

Yeah I wasn’t fast enough and I also tried to contact their support and such. Oh well

Years ago, I bought headphones that were ¼ of the price of the big name Bose and Sony’s and provided at least ¾ the experience. When I wore them so much they eventually broke years later, I purchased some more from their website. Turns out they have been taking orders and haven’t been delivering products. Their Facebook page still posts ads and the comments are people talking about how it was a scam. That’s $170 dollars I won’t get back. It’s weird because I really liked their product and had no reason to think they would suddenly stop delivering. Very strange.

Brand is Cowin, by the way.

Yeah it’s tricky. Using “female” as a noun in a non-biological context is often used by incels and misogynists in order to dehumanise women. Whereas there isn’t the same trend of certain groups using “male” to dehumanise men, or at least I’ve never heard of it happening in real life.

In a vacuum, both would be the same, but because there is a much larger trend of using “female” to dehumanise women than using “male” to dehumanise men, it’s not a true double-standard.

And as long as you’re not being a dick, especially if English isn’t your native language, then people will know what you mean. But if you are consciously trying to make an effort, then don’t use “female” and “male” as nouns to refer to someone’s gender.

Thank you for taking the time to write this up. It’s very inspiring and I have some ideas to try

I find it tricky to just meet people with no shared topic to discuss, like at parties. I love clubs because everyone is there for a shared reason, whether it be board games, video games, a sport, a craft, etc. This means there’s always something to talk about when breaking the ice and I find that much more comfortable. Highly recommend clubs

Learning from others’ mistakes is real. I’ve learned a lot from my dad that way—I say that I’ve learned to so basically the opposite of what my dad does

I’m not American, and it took me a while to figure out what POTUS, SCOTUS, and GOP were

What does WOMBAT stand for?

I do the same thing. My brain kept misinterpreting ACAB for a while and usually slotted in “cat” for some reason until I figured out what it meant

Yikes, I’ve never seen these ones before but I hope they’re confined to the back alleys of the internet and you don’t see them too much

I enjoyed the beginning, I thought it had some funny jokes. But then it went downhill fast. I didn’t watch the whole thing

Thanks!