Gamifying the Lonely Wound
Loneliness is a fascinating trick our minds play on us. By its strictest definition, loneliness——to be alone and generally morose about it——is easier to overcome than ever. Everyone has an extra organ at their fingertips that connects them to everyone else by invisible threads you can pull on at any time. Access is at an all-time high. Text your sister——open a Discord server and see who's online——write an email to someone on the other side of the planet——scroll social media and look for something that sounds kind of open-ended——open a multiplayer game on Steam and search for sessions——
But that's not really what loneliness is, to me. There is a particular gift I have carefully and against my will honed razor-fine——the ability to be lonely without being alone. Some of you are doubtless familiar with the feeling. It is a wound. You are standing in a room full of smiling, laughing people, and you cannot touch them. It is a hunger. You're on a voice call listening to your friends banter and play, and you love them so much that it makes your stomach hurt like you haven't eaten in days——have you eaten today?——but you cannot touch them. It is a numb. You're having lunch with your mother who has been nothing but kind and understanding to you for your entire life——the foundation of your empathy, the crown of your first home——and you cannot touch her. It is a threat. You are sitting next to your spouse and you can climb into their lap and press yourself against them so hard you leave marks on each other, so why can't you touch them?
It is an open secret: the sort of thing you can't mention without sympathetic smiles and hug emojis and assurances that you're just a message and ten thousand miles of fiber optic cables away at any time——which, of course, makes you feel pathetic, like you're scrounging for dirty gauze to soak up the bleeding. But you can't really hide it, either. It's radiation; if someone stands near you for too long, they can feel it. If they stare at you for too long, they can see the signs of emaciation. You're practically screaming it when you brush someone's hand and all the nerves in your body light up in sympathetic horror.
And how easily it is agitated. You woke up three hours too early: no one is online, and your spouse is asleep, and you have only yourself. You stayed up an hour too late: everyone has logged off, your family is in another time zone, you can't leave the house because your pain would fold you in half, and you have only yourself. You closed your laptop: suddenly half the world is gone, you become aware that you have no friends in your province, and you have only yourself.
There's nothing you can do, except all of those things I listed in the first paragraph, but we both know you're not doing them. Neither am I. It is self-inflicted. That is the deepest and most miserable layer.
The Mechanics of Loneliness
I turn everything into games because it is a language I speak, and talking to people without rules——without a structure——is a language I'm only conversational in. (Ha-ha——conversational.) Why should loneliness be any different? If I were to write a game about loneliness, what would I focus on? What feelings do I associate with being lonely, and how can those feelings be recreated in the player?
- Solipsism. Loneliness is a failure to connect with others. A game of loneliness is a solo game, but it should involve other people——ones you have not invited to play the game. You might tell them about it, but they're never on the inside of your game.
- Humiliation. Loneliness, at the sensory level, feels pathetic. It makes you viciously aware of your body and the space around you. A game of loneliness should use your body and your surroundings as mechanical levers.
- Omnipresence. Loneliness strikes you anywhere, at any moment, for any reason. It does not wait until you're sitting at a table with pen and paper in hand. A game of loneliness should be easily remembered and played without much setup.
We have tools, now. But there's an important question unanswered. What is the purpose of a game of loneliness? Is it meant to exacerbate your loneliness? To push you, in some intangible way, toward other people? To grab you by the chin and force you to look at the wound until you're so sick you stop playing? Is it supposed to be fun? (That one's easy: no.) Does it need a purpose, or is it enough to simply create a feeling?
It would be noble——productive, maybe even therapeutic——to write a game that helps close the wound. I don't think it's the game I would write, though.
In fact, wait here for a minute.
A Short and Lonely Game
This is a short game about loneliness. To play, you need a marker or pen that can write on skin.
Every time you think about talking to someone——messaging someone——touching someone——without doing it, make a dot somewhere inconspicuous on your skin. Then look around and pick something far away from you. Look at its details; consider what you can see, and what you can't. Is it lonely, too? If so, turn that dot into a cross. Check the time; you're excused from making dots and crosses for one hour.
You cannot mention the dots and crosses on your skin to another person without explaining the full rules of this game and, to your best recollection, the situation in which you made each one. If you fail to explain the entire game, you must end the conversation.
When the number of dots and crosses gets too humiliating to keep explaining away, pick somewhere more discreet on your body to place them. You can now delay making a dot for up to an hour, but you can only do it somewhere private, like a bathroom, and only while you're alone.
You can't clean dots and crosses off your body. Other people can; when they do, consider what you can see, and what you can't. Are they lonely, too? If so, clean the dots and crosses off their body. Check the time; you're excused from being lonely for one hour.