There’s a tournament at Starlit on Saturday. Dimestore and I signed up for it. However, he’s got a couple’s day with his wife instead, so I’ll be going in solo. This tournament has a special prize for flatlines, so I’m working on a killer deck for a change. I’m a bit stumped on ice balance currently. I’ll probably work and rework it for a few hours tonight.

After the tournament, there’s two options depending on the timing. Make an effort to go check out the local vampire LARP or relax for a bit. I’ve got a birthday party later that night, so that’s where I’ll eventually be, unless I start feeling antisocial again. Though I’ll probably show up as I bought the host a present and so I should go at least to deliver that. I think in theory it’s something he’ll enjoy, but perhaps I’m wrong.

Monday I helped friends move. Showed up with a cargo van, we loaded it to the gills, drove over, unloaded it. Rinse and Repeat. No major hassles, no injuries. A couple squished fingers but no blood for a change.

Afterwards, the timing worked out for me to hit up the local ingress cross faction meetup, something I haven’t done for ages. I probably haven’t done it since I got this job, if not perhaps a bit longer. Given that I tend to only have a weekday night free a week and I’ve had a backlog of social obligations to work through. But, I was parking the moving van nearby that night, and the food there is decent, so I dropped in to be social. A few people were glad to see me, a few people didn’t know me, and a few people were weird. But that’s no surprise. I learned a few things, and I had a few beer. Interesting flavors. That is the one benefit of eating there, you can usually find a tasty brew to go with your meal.

Things got a bit uncomfortable for me when a former friend showed up. I thought about leaving, but I’d already made plans with Dimestore for him to swing through on his way home to grab a datapack from me, so I decided to stick around. For the most part, it was clear we weren’t at the same table. When Dimestore showed up, I pointed out that he was there, they said hello and had a nice conversation. Mildly interesting, since this friend had cut ties with Dimestore and I at the same time, since my stubbornness was obviously contagious. Anyways, it was uncomfortable for me, and I almost regretted that I’d made an effort to extend an olive branch the week prior, even though it was the right thing to do. I was relieved that despite my efforts and the obvious advantages of the situation for him, he’d decided not to bother with it.

Then Tuesday, I saw that someone had started making an attempt to make the geek community a better place in Vancouver. And I thought that would be great. Until I saw that they’d tainted the well already. I’m sure they had the best of intentions, but inviting the rather defensive girlfriend of a man who abuses the word community for his own profit into the group meant to repair the community… I just can’t see that turning out in a positive manner. Given his actions regarding Zombiewalk and various other things, I’m uncomfortable dealing with him. I’ve burnt out on it. I talked to the guy who’d done the inviting for the group and the guy who’d started the group, let them know that for health reasons, I’m not interested in being involved. My experiences with that individual have been so toxic that probability of his involvement was enough to make me not want to be involved, to avoid that ugliness in my life.

I’m torn between ranting about him further or just trying to put the whole thing out of my mind. On one hand, if I rant, it has the potential for people to understand where I’m coming from, balanced against the potential for him to use my writing against my friends who still deal with him. On the whole, it’s probably healthier to just put it out of my head. Except this is my place, so I should be able to write what I want here. Eh, I’ll just leave it for now.

Afterwards, I was looking into some of the symptoms of PTSD, as someone in my extended social network had been interested in the job opening here, but had mentioned he had some doubts about taking the job while he was still sorting out his PTSD and his treatment. I noticed that the symptoms for PTSD match up with what I’ve been experiencing. It’s something I need to examine and it’s resulted in me doing some reflecting.

As far as I can recall, there aren’t really any specific events that would qualify as traumatic in my life. My childhood was pretty alienated and I have some issues with betrayal and belief, but there are specific major incidents, just a variety of times when things were rough.

I posted on my facebook that I was beginning to consider the idea that I was dealing with something that had similar symptoms to a mild form of PTSD, and that it was related to my dealings with the Zombiewalk and goth drama. I was vaguebooking, something I hate to do, but after the lecture I received last Saturday for going into too much detail, it seemed reasonable. In response, I got told off for comparing my bullshit to being in a war or being raped. Obviously my traumas weren’t severe enough for me to qualify for even a mild form of something similar to PTSD. My response was hostility and I opened a chat with the person, explaining to them that they really didn’t understand the whole story, and I was trying to work through something, not trying to whine. Apparently the hostility came across pretty strongly, as they got rather upset and wanted to end the conversation, since they felt I was bullying them.

Yes, I was bullying them for responding to a negative comment on my facebook page. Well, I guess that’s how the internet works.

Maybe it’s a case of my words being chosen poorly, or coming across hyperbolic. Maybe the symptoms only fit because of a psychological version of hypochondria. I do know that I have some things that are pretty nasty triggers for me, and that I need to sort them out. Not dealing with them is probably partially responsible for my current state of isolation.

I read something interesting about the Sexodus and male responses to feminism tonight, and I’d intended to comment on it, but I’m already over my 1K words and it’s nearly time to catch my bus so that’ll have to wait for another entry.