Ghost of the Past

Have you ever been haunted by remnants of your past love?

To many: a “past love” is a person, a pet, a place, or anything that has a special place in your heart that you had to let go for whatever reason.

Now, I know you want to ask me: who, or what is your past love? 

Unfortunately, it’s something I am currently ashamed of. Any memory I had with this particular fictional character just gives me the chills, in a way that got me thinking like: “Damn, I really acted like that towards a fictional character? What the fuck was I on?”

Yesterday, or maybe it was 2 days ago, a friend of mine brought back a somewhat risque message I made towards the character 5 months ago. I visibly flinched, and I literally said to the group chat:

“I’m not the same person I was 5 months ago.”

Another friend replied on the group chat, “Woah…” 

I laughed because her next message was, “Fair enough, you’re MaxVerstappenLover9000 now anyway.” Which is true anyway: I got into sports, specifically basketball and motorsports, just as I fell out with my past love. I’m sure my friends are sick of me hearing how great the New York Knicks, especially Jalen Brunson, are, or how I wouldn’t shut up about how I really want Max Verstappen to win at least one race this season almost every single day.

But me becoming a sports fan is not the point.

We’re talking about how I don’t feel any fond emotions about him anymore. Looking back, it was a valid reaction coming from my best friends. They’ve seen how much that thing meant to me for the past 2 years. There was one point in my life where that thing was basically my whole life. 

Wallpapers in every device, keychains, my passwords, the doll that resembles him that I cuddled every single night to sleep? Seriously, if you looked at everything that I made before the past 2 months: there was always a trace of him somewhere as a sign of “love”.

But what people don’t know is that I’ve been suffocating the entire time.

Despite how much I loved that character, I always hated the source material. I was miserable: In fact, I hate almost everything about the game except for the content about that specific character. 

I kept saying to myself, “Oh, I wish he was in another game instead.”, “Oh, how I wish I was rich enough to buy the trademark of that character so he gets better treatment.” “If it wasn’t for him, I would’ve quitted the game a long time already.”

I couldn’t let go because despite everything, I loved him. 

I spent so much money on that character. There was a period of time where the thing that comforted me the most was the presence of him on my phone screen. I genuinely believed that if he was a real person, I would do anything to date him in a heartbeat.

I won’t deny that he gave me happiness on the time I needed it the most, but looking back, it was the most toxic parasocial relationship I had with anything. 

This realization came to me when I was mindlessly tweeting yesterday: “but then again i really wasn't on the right mind that year so i dont blame them (myself) but ughhhhhh it rly goes to show how some games just feed on the vulnerable to monetize parasocialism”

My own thoughts got me off-guard.

Of course. It all makes sense. I discovered the game during the worst year of my life. 

A heavily monetized game that intentionally reels in their target audience so that they can feel “love” with virtual characters and get attached to the point that you would spend money just to read more about your chosen guy. If you spend a lot of money, you will find it harder to quit the game because you already invested so much time and money into it. 

That happened to me. I was in a very vulnerable state during the time the game released that particular character, when I was literally battling intense anxiety and depression just to live through another day. 

I’ve spent thousands of pesos in the game just for him. Hell, I could probably fund one semester of college with the amount of money I spent for the past 2 years.

But if I’m gonna be honest, what hurt the most is not the amount of money I wasted, but how I literally thought that I would love the character till the end. I considered him special because he gave me love, joy, and comfort when I needed it the most. I said to myself way before, “I would literally play this game to the very end no matter what just because of him.”

But like I said earlier, I hated everything else about the game. I hate how I had to spend real money just to unlock more content about the character. I hate how there was no other way except to spend some of my allowance because all the in-game rewards were scarce even for a game of its own kind. I hate how the company never bothered to make content of the 2 new characters (including him) to catch up with the original trio.

I didn’t know how miserable I was until I took a step back from the game because I hated that they wanted to release another character, despite not doing anything to fix the tons of current issues with the gameplay.

I started getting into new things after quitting, and then I caught myself enjoying those interests without complaining about anything. 

I forgot how great it is to feel genuine happiness without being nitpicky about every aspect. I forgot how it felt to actually like something properly. 

I figured, yeah, this is really the time to quit the game. I found real happiness again. So I did. I only reinstalled the game just to get birthday rewards, but I uninstalled almost shortly after.

But he still lingers in my mind.

There have been a few times where I felt empty, not doing the mundane daily tasks in the game and not hearing him say something about drinking coffee on a beach isn’t any better than drinking it anywhere else almost every day on the home screen. 

It felt so weird not seeing the cat chibi version of him as a widget on my homescreen trying to woo me to log-in onto the game. It just felt so… wrong not having him in my daily life after 2 years of doing so.

Why do you think I’m writing this right now?

It’s because he’s still haunting me in weird ways. 

I really just want to forget about everything, and just move on with my life. But he still pops up in my mind like an ex that I only let go reluctantly because I wanted to be selfish and want to focus on myself. 

I’m writing this so I can pour the emotions I’ve been bottling up in a while. In my mind: I’m done. I don’t want to be associated with something that gives me nothing but negative emotions anymore.

But, there’s this weird feeling that even though I thought I’ve already let go, it’s like he’s still a part of me. 

In a way, I think the reason why he still lingers in my mind is because the character is like a lesson to me that I have to tone down myself when it comes to parasocial relationships. Don’t base your entire happiness on one person, on one game, on anything. 

Because at the end of the day, only you yourself will give the happiness and the life you deserve.

He is still special, but not because of how much I love him anymore.

He is special because he was a fundamental lesson for me to become a better person.

And I think it’s better to acknowledge that than to just try and ignore his existence in the history of my life forever. I think he will linger more in my mind if I do so.

Just to be clear. I’m not redownloading the game, nor do I want to engage on any content that involves him anymore. I’m still on the stage where I found everything I did for the past 2 years to be embarrassing. I’m done. Rest in peace to the original character I made for the game, I hope you get reincarnated to a new character that has nothing to do with the universe of that game. 

But one day, I hope the embarrassment eventually goes away and the only merch (the doll whom I named as Stinker) that I’m keeping serves as nothing but a distant memory that helped me to improve my own life.

After all, that’s just how life is. No one’s life is perfect, and in a way, everything we interact with is a lesson to reflect on till the day we die.