This morning someone asked me if I wanted an old Xbox 360, and this afternoon I realized why, exactly, it was that I did not: in all my life, I’ve never solved or completed a game. Not once.

The games I played the most when I was younger, for example, were not videogames but Infocom text adventures and I never finished one without resorting to reading a walk-through.

Games are distilled frustration.

Life itself already is a series and sequence of environments and situations which I’ve never been able to solve or complete. Sitting down to “play” more of the same isn’t entertainment; it’s torture. I wish I’d understood, back then, what this was telling me about myself.

Post-diagnosis, my life has been about trying to suppress complication and incite predictability. There’s little question that I’m simply not a puzzle person. I don’t want to have to be responsible for a story—and I’m using “story” broadly here to encompass anything which, in a game context, requires “figuring out”.

I’m fine simply giving myself over to being told one.