I find that I can convert hatred into motivation pretty easily. Its the only reason why I have DS1 100%'d on my xbox and why I own three copies of it. For a game I apparently hate, clearly my behavior towards it doesn't match. The hatred started when I had to traverse to Capra demon and deal with the dogs after each run and every runback. I accepted the horrendous hitboxes the dogs had. The runback was what was agonizing. I complained about it online and to friends, and the only response I got was 'git gud.' So, I powered through and killed him.

Did I have fun? No. I can make this a post picking apart the various design issues I have with the game, but at this point after seeing both renditions of Elden Ring and Sekiro, Fromsoft even agreed with my pain points as most of it doesn't even exist in those games, so I won't. I'll make this about my insecurity.

It's the only reason why I've played the game so much. Being told my opinion isn't qualified because I didn't sink as much time into the terrible game. That design decisions I knew were terrible upon my first time encountering them were Actually GoodTM, I just haven't wasted hours because of these mechanics to realize why. I don't know why I was unable, still unable to just ignore people like this. Why I had to stupidly 'prove myself' to. Why I had to stupidly 'prove myself' to.

Here's what I've realized, or what I'm trying to realize: I was seeking validation from the least qualified people imaginable. Internet strangers who measure expertise in playtime. People who've built their entire identity around defending every design choice of a video game, as if admitting a flaw would shatter something fundamental about themselves. Why did their approval ever matter?

I spent hundreds of hours essentially arguing with a brick wall, except instead of talking to the wall, I was letting it tell me I needed to hit my head against it more times before I was allowed to say it hurt. And I believed it. I internalized this absurd requirement that experience must be measured in suffering-hours before an opinion becomes legitimate.

The cruel irony is that I already knew what I thought. My initial reactions were valid. When I first encountered those runbacks, those hitboxes, animation lock outs that sometimes reach entire seconds, those design choices that felt punishing for punishment's sake rather than meaningful challenge, I was right to notice them. But I let strangers convince me that my immediate, honest experience was somehow less real than their post-hoc rationalizations.

I have people in my life who actually listen. Friends who can say "yeah, that sounds frustrating" without needing me to first submit a résumé of completed achievements. People who understand that you can recognize poor design without it being a personal failing. That criticism and enjoyment aren't mutually exclusive. That spending 200 hours doing something you hate to prove you're allowed to hate it is, objectively, unhinged behavior.

And yet I did it anyway. Because some part of me was broken in a way that made anonymous validation feel necessary. Not just nice to have, but necessary. As if my own thoughts weren't real until someone else confirmed them. As if my experience of frustration needed peer review before it could exist.

I think about all those hours I could have spent on literally anything else. Games I might have actually enjoyed. Hobbies I've been meaning to pick up. Time with people who don't require me to prove my credentials before accepting that I had a bad time with something. The opportunity cost of seeking approval from people whose approval was worthless. What's worse is that I still feel the pull sometimes. That knee-jerk need to justify myself, to explain why my experience is valid, to anticipate counterarguments from people I'll never meet and don't respect. It's a reflex now, this defensive crouch I assume whenever I have an opinion about anything someone online might care about. But I'm trying to unlearn it. Trying to remember that the people whose opinions I actually value don't require me to suffer before they'll take me seriously. That "I didn't enjoy this and here's why" is a complete sentence. That I don't owe internet strangers a dissertation on why my fun matters.

I don't know how to internalize this. Maybe its because I'm a shut-in, and the few people I get to interact with online feel like the only real people in my life. Maybe its the autism? I hate blaming things on that.

But maybe that's exactly the problem. Thinking of it as blame. Like there's something wrong with needing to understand why my brain works the way it does. The truth is, I do get more attached to online interactions than most people seem to. The barrier between "random internet stranger" and "person whose opinion matters" gets blurry when so much of my social world exists through a screen. When my daily human contact is measured in Discord messages and forum posts, it's harder to maintain that emotional distance that neurotypical extroverts seem to manage effortlessly. They can shrug off a dozen dismissive comments because they're getting validation everywhere else like at work, at the gym, at whatever social gathering they attended last weekend. For them, internet strangers are background noise. For me, they were often the only voices in the room.

Understanding why I fell into this pattern doesn't make the pattern less destructive, but it does make it less mysterious. Less like a personal failing and more like a predictable outcome of specific circumstances. I was lonely, I was online, and I was looking for connection in spaces specifically designed to be hostile to nuance. What I'm slowly learning is that validation isn't inherently bad. The problem was never that I wanted people to take my thoughts seriously. The problem was where I was looking for it and what I was willing to sacrifice to get it. I was trying to extract empathy from people who had none to give, and when that inevitably failed, I kept trying harder instead of looking elsewhere.

The people who actually care about me don't require proof. They don't need me to earn the right to be frustrated or disappointed or critical. When I tell my friend that a game mechanic feels unfair, they don't respond with "well, did you beat it though?" They respond with curiosity, or sympathy, or their own experiences. The conversation goes somewhere. It doesn't just terminate in "git gud" and leave me feeling like I need to spend another hundred hours before I'm allowed to speak again.

And yeah, I'll continue using this crappy game as a stand-in in place of some really horrendous conversations I've had with people along the same lines. God forbid I try to talk about racism in the States.

I think about the conversations I have with people I trust. How easy they are. How I never feel the need to prepare a defense, to anticipate counterarguments, to prove I've suffered enough to deserve their attention. I just... talk. And they just... listen. Not because they agree with everything I say, but because they respect me enough to take my perspective seriously without requiring credentials.

Why was that never enough? Why did I need the approval of people who saw me as an opponent to be defeated rather than a person to be understood?

The honest answer is that I don't know. Or maybe I know but don't want to say it: because there's a part of me that still doesn't believe I matter unless everyone agrees I matter.