So I’m a shut-in with a ton of problems and no money. My life revolves around World of Warcraft and Destiny 2 which is sad in its own right I’m sure. Anyway every single time I try to find a community (guild or clan) it goes to hell within a month or so. They always say I’m too negative about the game or my performance. No matter what I do/say it apparently always comes across as ‘negative’ and they see it as hurting their community. Funny enough these communities are always dead and I’m talking into a void trying to engage people.
Sorry I’m not sure why I’m posting this. Just had another group tell me I was getting kicked due to negativity and I’m so tired of it. I don’t have any friends, I’m always starting over from scratch and even if I try my hardest it still ends the same way. Don’t even feel that I’m being negative since I just say bugs me. Sorry. Feel like I could cry, because of everything, and I can’t even do that.
Comming from a simular situation. So the best I can give is my own story.
Nearing my 40s. More of a rimworld/minecrafter. Every day off work, every waking minute im in a game.
short version of a long story. I’m experiencing huge life changes. Therapy and friends convinced me to remove one of the major causes of my isolation. And with it going away I saw just how isolated I actually was all this time. I saw how badly it has affected me. The negativity is part of that. It’s like a symptom of isolation poisoning.
I feel for the first time that I’ve wasted so much time. I didn’t value making friends or seeking a life parter. Though having made a friend everything changed.
Honestly the desire to play games is fading and it now feels bad to play games all day. Making a real friend who is postive made me want to be more positive i leared that it’s a genuinely good feeling.
Isolation is comfortable but it comes at a cost you may not see. It’s good to go out and get some perspective occasionally.
I have some experience with this unintended negativity, both from working on my own and helping friends and colleagues (programmers). You care and want to help - feeling positive or neutral, people feel like you are pushing negativity on them.
I’m happy to have a longer discussion with you over DM to help - maybe go through some conversation examples - but for general advice I’d focus on:
-
Suggesting improvement is criticism.
-
When talking about non-persons (plan, initiative, item, map, game, …) people will take it personally if they have any connection to it. E.g. if they found a new gun, they may be excited to test it out. Commenting “x is better” sucks away their happiness. If they have spent a lot of time grinding on something, telling them “you should do Y it is faster” devalues the time they spent and makes them feel stupid.
-
Most people you interact with don’t want to play optimally. Any helpful advice to show them a better way is making them feel worse about the fun they are having.
-
But! If people ask you for advice explicitly, let loose! What would otherwise be interpreted as negativity, will be taken positively.
-
Socializing well is one of the hardest struggles of being a human, and even people that are naturally social still may not get along well with others. I like to recommend the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Think of it like a “For Dummies” book on socializing. It has a lot of real-life anecdotes for difficult social situations people overcome and how. I should mention I just pirated the audiobook for it though.
Also, like others have said, I like listening to Healthy Gamer on youtube/twitch. He’s a real, active therapist with a lot of experience helping people with these kinds of things, particularly for gamers. You can also just play it in the background while doing other things.
When I was younger I also was told that I had a bit of a “debbie downer” presence.
Something that helped me was the concept of “yes and”, when someone says something, find anything in, or tangential to, their statement that you can either :
- Agree with
- Comment on
- Tangent from
Then the “and” part, add something of your own to the conversation.
Force yourself to balance your natural negativity with forced positivity and over time you may find that you no longer have to force it, and that you enjoy finding hidden positives in things, like a game, it turns conversation into a puzzle.
In general, people like being agreed with. So sometimes before disagreeing you can even say, “I agree with X part” and then instead of saying you blatantly disagree, change your tone to something like, “I would probably modify Y and see if I like it.” It’s all about controlling your tone and playing to human tendencies.
Once you get to know someone better, you can be a bit looser, some people like autistic truths. Know your audience, sometimes it’s as easy as asking, “Oh, am I being too negative, I try not to do that.”
Good luck!
I had talked to them about how I come off as negative but don’t mean it thar way. They said I was good and to not stress it. So I was just beint me and tonight I get a ‘you’re being negative and we don’t want that in our community’. So even being real with them and talking to them about this it wasn’t good enough.
People are unpredictable. Don’t take it as a judgement of who you are, we all face rejection sometimes. It can even be good for you in doses because it helps build resilience and shows that failure is just part of growth as a person. If you never fail, you aren’t trying hard enough.
All you can do is sincerely try, if you are doing that, as well as accepting feedback and growing, the right people will notice that effort. You’ll find your people, just don’t stop trying.
I also suggest meditation, it can help you to identify the roots if thoughts as well as help you to know yourself. You may find the root of your negativity if you explore yourself.
Not an ad, I use it regularly, Headspace is a great app as an intro to meditation. Costs like $100 a year I think? If money is tight there are plenty of free alternatives.
Wish you the best.
Super advice. I do this in online and real life discourse on most any subject.
When responding to something, always begin your point at a place the other person understands. It’s not always easy to find something to agree with from a position that you completely disagree with, but still try to find even some neutral ground. If you start at an unfamiliar spot for them right out of the gate, you lose people’s attention, or they can get defensive, which isn’t your fault but it’s a natural reaction.
Hey, there’s a lot going on in this post. This might be a bit beyond our scope. I recommend seeking professional help. It sounds like there’s a number of things that you’d wanna talk about in therapy: depression, gaming addiction, boundaries, self criticism, emotional regulation, etc.
I know you call yourself a shut in with no money. See if you can find something virtual and through insurance. Or request financial hardship rates. You gotta do something. The only wrong answer is to keep doing nothing.
I don’t have insurance because it costs $600 a month. So again that’s not an option. Gaming addiction? These are my current fixations that bring some tiny joy in this miserable existence so I’m not sure how that is considered ‘addiction’, especially in an autistic community. Also wasn’t really looking for help. Just being seen/heard/understood is more than I get anywhere so I thought I could post here. Sorry if that was wrong.
It doesn’t seem like it’s bringing you joy. You aren’t happy where you are, are you? Sometimes when an immediate pleasure keeps us afloat in a bad situation, it tends to make it easier to stay in that bad situation. And the more you seek satisfaction from gaming, the harder it is to get that satisfaction, right? Hence the negativity.
If nothing else, try watching some Healthy Gamer videos. He has a great YouTube channel with a lot of topics that will be relevant to you.
- Play better games. The meaningless pursuit of power is rotting your brain. Chasing gear is boring and asks nothing of you.
- Get different hobbies. Seriously. Games are rotting your brain. Go see a movie. Go bird watch or something.
- Is your representation of other people problem with you really accurate? Reading your post, I don’t think anyone could glean what’s really going on. Like, how are you negative? Are you verbally berating someone who doesn’t heal you in WOW? What questions are you finding acceptable in the LGBTQIA+ groups? Are you finding it reasonable for someone to imply all queer folks are pedos?
Itt: a ton of nice people take time out their day to write long, detailed, and helpful advice, which OP argues with at every turn. LOL
Sorry you feel like I’m arguing with them. But people telling me to ‘go see a doctor’ when I’ve already said I don’t have any money isn’t helpful. I’m also not going into every single fine detail of my health here so a lot of the suggestions are just not going to work. Also people keep saying ‘be positive’ or whatever and I can’t make people see what I’ve said (since it was all stuff in guild/clan discords), but I’ve done the ‘positive’ thing and it ended up the same way. Though usually the positive thing ended with me feeling more alone. So yeah I’m sorry that all of the ‘long thought out helpful advice’ isn’t really helpful to me. I was ‘arguing’ with people who were clearly not reading my original post when they jumped straight to ‘go spend money on a doctor/therapist’.
