Gaming is the only logic left in my life
I spent three hours last night grinding MMR because it is the only place where things actually make sense. You press a button, a spell happens. You play well, you win. You mess up, you lose. It is a simple system of cause and effect that my brain desperately needs right now. Compare that to coming home and finding out I am the villain of the week because I bought the wrong brand of cereal or because my face looked "too neutral" during dinner. It is exhausting to live in a world where the rules change every ten minutes based on someone else's internal weather.
When I am in a match, I know exactly what my role is. If the support pulls the lane, we get an advantage. If the carry gets farm, we scale. There is a roadmap to success even when the game is hard. But with her, I could be doing everything right - working my side job to pay for our weekend trips, keeping the apartment clean, listening to the same three stories for the hundredth time - and I still wake up to a "discard" text because she had a dream where I cheated on her. It is like trying to play a competitive shooter where the server lag is constant and your teammates are actively trying to teamkill you for no reason.
My buddies keep asking why I am spending so much time in the library or at the campus cafe instead of being at home. I just tell them I need the high speed internet for my "projects" but the truth is I just can not handle the unpredictability anymore. The silence at the library is peaceful, unlike the heavy, loaded silence at the apartment where you are just waiting for the next explosion. I used to think I was being a good partner by staying and "supporting" her through the episodes, but I realized I was just lagging behind in my own life. My grades are slipping and I am constantly on edge.
Yesterday she got mad because I did not reply to a meme within five minutes while I was literally in the middle of a teamfight. She called me selfish and said I do not care about her feelings. I just stared at my screen while the ancient exploded and realized that the game was actually less toxic than my relationship. At least in the game, the match ends and you can queue for a new one. In this house, the match never ends and the stats are always rigged against me. I think I am finally ready to disconnect for good because my mental health bar is at zero and there are no heals left in the inventory.