Awkward Nerd Rage

One of my imagined hobbies that I'm trying to make more a part of my real life is playing Magic:The Gathering (that nerdy card game that used to be quite niche, but seems much more mainstream these days). And this weekend, I got the chance to go to two Magic events and play (usually my schedule allows me to hit up one event at most). The first event I think I did pretty well considering how little I actually get to play and ended winning two matches before losing one and leaving the event (I was too hungry to try and focus for playing in the loser's bracket where there's no chance at winning anything). Then came the next day and the second event.

Before leaving the house, I told myself for this event I was just going to try and have fun, no worrying about winning. If anything, I'd hopefully put together some goofy deck that shouldn't work, but I'll be so happy the one time it does. I even (roughly) planned out the possible decks I could build to accomplish this. But then came time to build the decks. Already from my card pool I could see I didn't have a lot of strong options if I changed my mind and wanted to actually(/possibly) be competitive. But I decided to see what that competitive deck would look like and put that together first. Then after some internal dialogue and doubt about my competitive deck being that competitive, I scrapped it and went back to a "just fun" deck. I lost my first match and quickly. And in no way did I feel I had fun.

At this point, I could've accepted my circumstance and just tried again in the loser's bracket seeing if I could at least still salvage a winning record for the night. But I didn't - I packed up my cards and went home. Not because I thought I didn't have a chance at winning any matches. Or because I was too hungry to keep focus. I went home because I was mad.

Partly, I was mad because less than an hour before all this happened, the Bills lost to the Broncos in overtime and that was sitting in the back of my mind annoying the crap out of me. But such is the life of a Bills fan.

But mostly I was mad because when it came down to it, I really did want to win and I was deluding myself when I said I was only there to have fun. That's not to say I can't have fun when I don't win, but that I'm not having fun when I'm not even trying. And I had no one to be mad at but myself. 

And as I write this, I'm suddenly realizing how much this may very well apply to so much more of my life. Probably something to talk about with my therapist. Or bottle up and let eat at me for years on end until it becomes another bit of the white noise in the back of my mind that somehow reminds me I'm less than I really could be while at the same time convincing me that settling is safe. Anyways...