You might look at the title and think “oh like they cry at cutscenes or something.” Yes, I did cry at the diamond dogs cutscene in MGSV, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I just had a great day. I took like 2 walks, talked to a bunch of friends, landed my first job, and just had a great time in general. Later in the night, I decided to play some Titanfall, and after losing 2 games in a row any molecule of dopamine left in my brain was gone.

And that’s an example of a good day. It’s gone to the point of self harm before. Actually, it’s gone there embarrassingly often. It’s the reason I can’t play games like Siege or Valorant anymore. And it seems completely random too, there’s days where I can go on a losing streak and feel fine, and then days where I lose once and feel fucking awful. It’s like endorphin gambling every time I boot up a competitive multiplayer game.

I’ve been enjoying more singleplayer and co-op games recently, so that's something, but every once in a while I’ll open up Titanfall or something and think “yeah I’ll give it a go, what’s the worst that could happen?” And then I either do really well or very quickly find out the worst that could happen.