Rant ahead. You have been warned.

So, for the better part of the year, I've been doing better with my avoidant tendencies. I still can't quite get the hang of conversation, but I can go places and do things with people and be more or less happy just being the big silent one. However, relapse is inevitable, and I'm the midst of a big one now.

So, my husband and I have Monday as a regular gaming night. We alternate between running World of Darkness and D&D each week. I run the D&D games. So, I've been having trouble with one of the guys that games with us. Let's call him S for simplicity. S has a myriad of psychological issues, which often comes out in game because he makes and remakes the exact same character over and over again (the character's father is always some demonic creature or horrible powerful person that rapes his mother and S's character is determined to hunt him down and kill him. Freudian much?). If anyone else in the party wants to play the same race or class, he immediately has to change it and he always wants to play an extremely unusual race. When I point out to him that people, especially in a medieval setting, tend not to react well to strangers who look entirely different than anyone else they've ever met and that being a half-demon/half-drow is likely to be difficult in a kingdom where drow are well-known as viscious raiders and most of the populace subscribes to a religion that does not truck with demons at all, he gets mad and just can't understand why that would be the case.

So, recently, we ended a campaign and have been trying to start another one. First, after I told S that he could play a race I've never even heard of out of a third party supplement because it was just too over the top, S said he was going to give up gaming entirely (or rather he sent his roommate M who also games with us to say so on his behalf since he is apparently too chicken to come tell us himself). Then, trying to be nice, I gave him a few days to cool off, invited him to a movie night my husband was wanting to do at the house and told him if he changed his mind, I would keep his seat open for awhile. Then he wanted to play again and talked about this new character he wanted to play. Then, when we were set to run the first session last Monday, M shows up and says that S has decided he's not going to play after all because he's gained five pounds and needs to spend more time at the gym. Despite the fact that he's still going to play in my husband's game every other Monday as usual. Riiiiiight...

The thing that gets me the most is that he can't summon the balls to actually talk to me about what's going on. I'm not going to compromise the rules of the game just so he can play a character that is probably going to die or fall apart completely in the first session, but I would still rather he actually say, "Hey, this is why I don't want to play" and be honest about it. I should say that I appear to be cursed with an apparently extremely accurate ability to detect lies and insincerity in other people, possibly because I used to lie like crazy when I was a kid and also because I'm very good at noticing slight changes of tone and movement and facial expression, and it doesn't help my avoidant tendencies at all. Even simple social lies that would satisfy other people drive me crazy. And people do it all the time.

So, I'm really thinking about just giving up the whole thing entirely. I'm tired of S demanding that he be able to play out this unhealthy psychodrama in game that really needs to be addressed by a trained psychologist, I'm tired of M trying to sound worldly and intelligent when he totally isn't in such a way that it's painful to listen to and trying to get on my good side with flattery that a three year old could see through. They're the closest thing to friends that I have right now, but there are times when they just about drive me crazy and all I want to do is just kick them out, find a cave somewhere and become a hermit (with conjugal visits from the husband, of course).

/rant