I watched your Ted Talks video about anxiety. It was good!

I think I have a very mild form of anxiety, but I don't know if that's the truth of it. One thing that I HATE doing in online games--is accepting friend requests. I'm so much of an independent person. That I dread the concept of doing something like running a farm party, and someone saying "hey, you're pretty awesome. Let's be friends so we can do this again sometime!"

But to me. I feel like that's restricting. Like oh gosh, now this person wants me to do crap with him. It feels constraining, so 95% of the times someone throws me a friend request--I tend to deny them, because I hate having friendships based around content. I get it a lot in PvP games too. But it just annoys the heck out of me. Especially when you run a game with someone, and they add you. And then they pester you every other day to run games. NOOO! I told you to leave me alone. I don't want to run PvP right now. I'm busy playing Age of Empires 2!

One of the reasons why I absolutely love chat channels and the Novice Network (and strangers online), is that there's never any solid obligation or commitment. I could literally disappear off the earth the next day--and no one would wonder where I was. And I greatly enjoy that freedom. And anytime I feel tied to something--it feel restricting. It's hard to explain beyond 'anxious.'

-----

I do know that I've often fell into that trap where I'm 'that person' who leaves another behind, and then they get upset that I left them. So I try extremely hard not to let people get close to me in that regard. Good examples (from years ago). Would be like making friends in WoW, and then deciding I wanted to play Swtor or FFXIV. I don't believe I need my friend's approval to chase my own path. I just do it. But then they complain that I abandoned them. Like hey. This is how I am. You can choose that or leave it. But please don't guilt trip me over it. It annoys me greatly.

In FFXIV's it's been about tranasfering servers and such. I GREATLY DISLIKE IT when people rely on me. I just want to do me--freely.

----

And in my relationship it works well too! I think it's because we're much more closer intimately and mentally, we get our connection from that. That it doesn't matter what server we're on, or what games we play. For example, she's heavy in FFXIV--and I'm on break until Shadowbringers. We rely on each other mentally and emotionally, and that connection is great. But when it comes to entertainment like games, TV, or movies--we're both completely free to chase our goals without feeling chained by each other.

-shrugs- I don't know. I've never felt anxious with my wife. I think it's because I spent a long time making sure she was the perfect person. So I don't fall into some of the pitfalls of being saddled with some annoying pug that I just want to tell off, lol.