I love you. I think I was in love with you briefly, and I think I’ll be in love with you again. During my manic phase, I felt so strongly about you, I wanted nothing but the best for you, to the exclusion of all else. It was such an overwhelming emotion that I was engulfed by it. While I still love you, I still want what’s best for you, and I still cry when I feel like I won’t see you forever, I don’t know if I’d be a responsible partner for you to have. I think you deserve someone who can be IN love you that deeply all the time, not just when they’re high. Truthfully, I don’t know if my feelings are even romantic in nature when I’m not manic, or even if they’re supposed to be at this stage, it could be the ideal platonic love I feel. I don’t know anything, I don’t even know what romance is, and maybe I’m already expressing sentiments romantically. I’m a very confused person when it comes to these type of things and for that reason I don’t know if I should ever confess these feelings to you.
There’s a paradigm in TTRPGS, mainstream D&D is very “Adventure” based. You have a fantasy and you play it out, and usually there are some deviations but ultimately you know how it will end. Blades in the Dark, and indeed most indie RPGS are focused on “Play to Find Out.” I would like to play to find out with you, but I don’t know if that’s a healthy mindset to go into it with. Hopefully I’d feel deeper over time, but maybe I’m supposed to have the arc planned out, I’m supposed to know the adventure I want to go on if everything went right. I feel that “Adventure” based feeling when I’m manic. I imagine that we could live together, and I could care for you, keep you safe, and we could generate a family that would fulfill your “ultimate goal.” But, eventually, I come down. I don’t know; I’m uneasy. I think it’d be fun, and maybe I’d discover something deeper about you, about myself, and about our connection, but I also know that if it turned out bad it would likely be painful, for you and in turn me. If something happened, and, doors not closing after being opened, we were unable to go back to a safe distance and I’d lose you forever, I’d be very hurt. So hurt, even in imagination of the concept, that the idea “Playing to Find Out” seems like a waste of something very special to me. I know that’s fundamentally Anti-Life though, so I need to say something eventually.
To that end, I am creating a pact with myself. If I review this, find it to be at least as true to myself in 3 months time, the start of the next semester, as it is today, I will share it with you. I understand that this portrays me in a bad light, but I don’t want any semblance of manipulation to taint the process. There’s no pressure, there’s no obligation. Nothing has to change unless you personally want it. It’s my own personal job to temper my expectations after having announced my intentions. I need to manage myself when I’m manic, and knowing a direction either way would help me greatly in that endeavor, but you have no obligation to regulate me.
If you ignore this note, I will understand it as a non-confrontational no. I think that being upfront with that would be the easiest thing for you.