#stardewvalley is ****judging**** me with this quest.
"Everyone will like you a little more"
What exactly are you implying with this.
I really enjoy using this game as an ignoring everyone simulator and so I'm horrified that the well-meaning suggestions of my friends IRL have been inserted into the game too.
I have talked to no one except to complete quests for a year and so the game is like "the NEW quest is talking to people!"
this is pure evil.
@futurebird
I am the new farmer in town who is only known by walking by in silence.
Okay, I talk to Krobus.
But the reason is that I like Krobus.
@wakame @futurebird , yes, I do talk to Krobus too.
On Fridays.
We are Silent Duo for life!
Kroubus is the best.
I'm now thinking about how being able to choose NOT to do something can be an important part of the fun of a game. Could one design a game that really leans in to the joy of being introverted?
I think this is one of the fun things about stardew. It's a dating sim... but you can just ignore all of that and NOT do it. Delightful!
"If I give $PERSON a $THING for 20 weeks, they will eventually love me."
This is not extraversion, this is buying love with money.
@wakame @futurebird , well, why not, if you need something from that person AND the gift is in that person's Liked list?
And, apparently, it works IRL too - I'm currently bribing my new coworkers with coffee like that... I need me' mates happy and jovial at least towards me...
Except you can't give them money. You have to remember the thing that they like. Which means thinking about them and what they care about for half a second.
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup and most of liked things can be foraged or created with very little resources. It has been always by the care, not the money
@maltita @futurebird @wakame , I'm really tempted to make Abigail joke in this context. I really am :)
The problem with the kind of dude who thinks "give woman $$gift five times: she must like me now" is mostly down to entitlement... but, also they don't bother to find out what the correct gift is.
It's not the value. It's taking the time to learn about the other *person* who *is* a person, not a vending machine.
If these dudes gave better gifts their plan might even work. (and in the course of executing the plan they might make a human connection which is the point)
I tended to err in the opposite direction of such dudes. I thought that doing things like working to learn names or making an effort to say something to everyone was "artificial" (it is) but therefore bad and fake and that I should be able to make friends and get to know people ... somehow... without doing any of these things.
This can work but it takes a long time, and you miss so many people that way.
To be fair: You can also increase your hearts in Stardew Valley by talking.
Maybe that first feel of "transactional social interaction" in that game just left a bigger impression on me because I found it so weird.
(And personally, I don't really like getting gifts, so that might feed into that feeling.)
Please do not beat yourself up about being "bad at socializing" while at the same time rejecting every basic thing that might make it less stressful. I think it's fine to decide that you just don't like talking to people and avoid it. But, there is no need to view yourself as deficient and not good at being human with other humans when you deliberately play on hard mode in social interactions in an effort to be "authentic."
I used to feel so bad that I didn't know who someone was, so stressed out that they would hate me, and everyone would hate me for not knowing what to say or do. But, **also** forbid myself from ever asking for help.
Because that also somehow meant I was "bad at" being social. (which I am, I do think some people find this effortless and they are freaks) nah. Just ask for help.
@futurebird @wakame , from my experience, sometimes people nosedive so badly so they don't even get the idea of asking for help. And it happens way more often than we think.
A healthy group will propose assistance eventually, as it's a matter of group's well-being.
Generally that's why I'm obsessively listening to some of my coworkers' rants and bringing coffee to them.
Some of them need attention.
And won't ask for help.
And I need them all in good shape, desperately.
(like Emily does :) )
@futurebird @wakame , besides.
> But, there is no need to view yourself as deficient and not good at being human with other humans when you deliberately play on hard mode in social interactions in an effort to be "authentic."
Not talking to anyone is fine in Year 2025. Our society is shattered enough to view this as normal stuff.
Now, not accepting (nor giving) gifts "because gift is debt and I don't make debts" - that's something that might be viewed as a moral abomination. . .
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup Often one doesn’t get to find out whether a deep connection is on the table, until everyone involved has had a chance to digest the experience of the initial, shallower connection.
(Why yes, I *have* been trying to figure out dating.)
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup I feel I have to share this, because this is spoofing exactly that dynamic in games. But mostly because I love it and it brings me joy and I will jump on any excuse to share it
https://youtu.be/nf-lhFKPqSM
I remember having a very intense argument with a guy 'friend' in college about this topic. He was convinced from the "expert dating advice" that 'females' care about the *value* of gifts specifically and all my efforts to convince him that he'd do better if he spent more time finding the exact right gift (or thing to do, or even joke) were just some kind of propaganda put out by women to IDK conceal how things really work I guess?
Wonder how things worked out for him?
Problem is, there are women (people of every gender) who care about the value of gifts, who look at relationships in that transactional way and through no other perspectives. I couldn't convince this guy he was embarking on a life where these would be the only kind of women he'd meet.
But, then, he *was* also the guy who said my advice about women didn't count because I was "basically a man because you know too much math"
CMU was kind of a toxic place looking back.
Sounds like he was already defining strict criteria on who counts as a "real" woman.
With that kind of mental sorting mechanism, he will of course only meet women who reinforce his conviction.
I was curious so I checked... and it seems he's still single and grumpy. Which would be fine except all he ever talked about was "finding a good wife" ... IDK. what do we do to boys to make them this way? I think they correctly perceive they have been given a set of rules where happiness is impossible.
@futurebird @wakame The result is relatively the same with that person.
I've just learned to not make it everyone's problem after 18 years of working with people...
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup I think you're right about boys being set up with an impossible set of rules.
Those rules include never actually listening to women, and (certainly Western) society isn't big on mentally equipping its subjects to deconstruct it (i.e. see through its bullshit).
So they're given a set of goals, plus an incomplete and largely wrong mental model... it's like we've been set up to perpetuate a completely unnecessary "war between the sexes."
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup While re-reading that, I misread one phrase as "a set of goats plus an incomplete and largely wrong mental model," and I'm not convinced this wouldn't lead to a better outcome.
For one thing, the goats would just eat that model along with any thistles in reach, and that would free the boys to figure out how things (including women) really work.
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup For a while I was madly in love with a woman who had worked as a mechanic and saved up to go to college. She thought my affection was cute, almost puppy like. She was right, but still...
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup
Apropos of this thread, the book "Platonic" by Marisa G. Franco was illuminating, for me.
@reginaldodr@ursal.zone@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup
So, knowing too much math makes you think like men? What a curse!
@reginaldodr @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup
Looking back I think he was trying to get me angry, but I was just baffled by his arguments and desperately trying to make sense of anything he was even saying. Now that I know a bit more about the "outlook" he was falling into I don't think I would bother letting the conversation continue as long as it did.
@futurebird @wakame @DrinkFromTheCup I dunno but I bet he has a string of exes with mementos he gave them, while all he has is a bitter aftertaste that women are all evil.
@futurebird Have you played The Longing? It's basically a game where you play "Krobus" and have to spend ages being alone. It's played in "real time", and iirc you can essentially just leave your little shadow person sitting there in the dark for a year, or you can explore caves and read books and otherwise pass the time.