it's difficult to feel that sometimes.

lately it's come to my attention that i am a challenging person to be around. my general state of mind is very analytical and critical of things i'm passionate about, particularly w/r/t video games. it's not so much whether i enjoy the same things or not as a whole; a negative perspective coming from me has been known to sour other people's enjoyment of something or else they just feel their tastes have been insulted outright. i really don't know if this stems from people just not "having skin" so to speak or because they actually put some stock in my insight and don't appreciate when it's used against X thing they like. this is one of those cases where empathy doesn't come naturally to me and has to be applied logically, and that's probably because when you reverse the roles, i do appreciate and value dissenting opinions. being able to respectfully disagree with me is commendable and deserving of hugs

in the case of video games specifically, i guess the main thing is that as a game designer i have this disposition where i am much more likely to bring up something i didn't enjoy as opposed to something i did. meanwhile in the case of say, music, i never have much to say beyond "this owns" or "not my thing" because music isn't something i know how to dissect on any technical level. in other words, knowing the general workings of video games means i can't always see things for how they are as much as how they could have been improved on

either way none of this reflects too well on me because i'm not like, someone who would play bad games deliberately to make a goony LP or anything like that. my opinions shouldn't matter any more than Joe Dudebro's, but ultimately they do because i have friends and they'd likely prefer to keep their distance with someone who can't chill the fuck out and stop taking every opinion they don't """get""" as some kind of challenge

otherwise i'm pretty much in the dark about what other people may not like about me, but i just remedy what i can