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Dating is scary–at least the idea is

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I haven’t dated in over a decade. The last time I was with someone, he love-bombed me to the point that we were planning on forever being together. It was all him, honestly, and my desire to be with someone (and to please the person I’m with) that made me go along with it. I’m not a good partner, which is one reason I haven’t dated in a decade. After a whirlwind romance and a heartbreaking dump of me by him, I vowed off dating for a year. That year stretched out into several years.

Right before the pandemic hit, I started thinking about dating again. Obviously, that went on the backburner when the pandemic hit, but I had given some thought into what I actually wanted. I don’t want a lifetime partner; I enjoy being by myself too much. Me and Shadow work really well together; that’s all I want in my day-to-day life. He’s on my legs right now, his left forearm extended over the edge of the couch. He’s taking his fifth nap of the day and enjoying life to its fullest.

Here’s the bottom line. I like to do my own thing. I don’t like having to compromise. I don’t want to do what the other person wants to do all the time. Some of the time, fine, but not all of the time. If I want to eat cereal at three in the morning, then that’s what I’m going to do. If I want to play Elden Ring for four hours straight–hell, yeah! Nobody better say boo to me. Part of the reason I’m so adamant about this is because I tend to let people take advantage of me. I was taught at a very young age that my feelings don’t matter. My only purpose was to serve others–especially my parents. They are both narcissistic in their own way (sometimes in confusingly opposing ways). Add to that the fact that I can feel other people’s emotions, and, well, let’s just say it’s better for me to be on my own or with a trusted person.

So when I started thinking about dating, I had to really consider what I wanted–and more importantly, what I didn’t want. First of all, I’m an outside the norm in almost everything. I’m fat, middle-aged, Asian, queer, genderqueer/agender, apathetic about religion, apathetic about gender, apathetic about, well, lots of things that other people seem to think are important. Movies and television shows fall under this umbrella as well. Most of music, too. I just don’t care.

I’ve pulled back on the pandemic. It just doesn’t terrify me the way it used to. In part because I’m fully vaxxed (no booster yet), but more because, well, my perspective was turned 180 while I was in the hospital. Suddenly, I had more important things to worry about–more immediate things. That’s something having a death-defying experience will do for you–change your priorities in a hurry.

When to go for the (not) plat

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I’ve been watching Playstation Access plat vids–both list videos on when to go for the plat and what to expect in a plat run, and actual plat runs. I’m including the video about what a game must have in order to make a plat run appealing. The first is loving the game, which you would think would be a given, but some people are plat hunters and don’t care for which game they hunt the plat. I call it not-platting because I think it’s funny, but also because the first two times I went for plats (Dark Souls, Dark Souls III), I told myself I wasn’t platting.

I am not a trophy hunter. At all. The reason is because I know that I will become obsessive about it once I start a plat. It happened with all the Dark Souls plats and the Hades plat as well. Fortunately, the latter plat is one of the most organic ones to get. Very little grinding, which made me happy. Here’s the thing. There’s always the grueling trophy or two that a game throws into the plat list that makes it such a pain to get. In the case of the Souls games, it’s the covenant items. It wasn’t terrible in the first game because you only needed ten (if I remember correctly). In the third game, however, you needed thirty of the item and the drop rate from farming was two or so an hour. Three or four if I was lucky. It was so painful, I begged Ian to let me kill him for the last dozen-and-a-half or so items I needed for one covenant. The second game, which I platted last of the three, also had a requirement of 30 covenant items twice, I believe (maybe three), but it didn’t seem quite as grindy as the third game. Why? Because the drop rate was a tad better. 3 an hour versus 2. It was still grindy as fuck, but didn’t wear me down as much as the third game did.

By the end of the not-plat for the third game, I was hating the game with all my might. It’s a good thing I gave in and asked Ian to let me kill him several times in a row for the last bunch of covenant items I needed because I have a feeling I might not have played the game again if I had to finish the plat the old-fashioned way–grinding it out.

I don’t see the need for excessive grinding at all in a plat. To me, a plat should celebrate a game and remind you of why you love it. It should bring a smile to your face as the trophy pops not make you feel like a hollow husk inside. Which is how I felt with each of the Dark Souls plats. Also, a sense of relief, but it was mixed with anger that I had to go through all that. I didn’t play Dark Souls III for months after the plat because I hated it so much by the end. Thankfully, I got over the hatred in time and now love it as much as ever, but it took many months and fear in my heart.