Month: February 2024

A Lesson in Radio Waves

On By kyndarisLeave a comment

I first played Night School Studio’s Oxenfree after hearing good things about the title. Many of the reviews I read spoke of the excellent writing and praised how the dialogue easily flowed between characters in an almost realistic manner. Years later, I played Afterparty, which was another game from the studio. Set in Hell, the two protagonists would challenge Satan in a drinking contest to earn the privilege of returning to the World of the Living. It was an interesting conceit and I was eager to see what Night School Studio would make next.

Imagine my surprise when they were then acquired by Netflix to make exclusive games for the streaming giant!

Thankfully, though, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals was released on multiple platforms and could be purchased on Steam. But while it is true I do have a Netflix subscription and could have played the game on the platform, it’s been a pain to figure out how to access their library of games as they are not readily available on the Desktop app version. In fact, it’s why I’ve yet to play the sequel to Valiant Hearts. Given how laden down with games I’ve been, though, it’s been a right struggle.

Anyways, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals acts as a sequel to the original game. Instead of following Alex and her friends around King Edward though, the main protagonist this time round is a woman called Riley. Five years after the events of the first game, Riley has returned to her hometown of Camena Coast. Although she is here to purportedly help in the study of radio anomalies around the town, depending on one’s choice of dialogue options you soon learn she has a fraught relationship with her ill father. Later, if you so choose, you can reveal to Jacob, Riley’s companion throughout the game, that she’s pregnant. Possibly another factor for why she came back to her hometown.

As you explore Camena Coast, Riley and Jacob soon stumble upon a strange phenomenon. When they see an interdimensional portal open up in the sky above King Edward Island, they are also gifted a vision of three teenagers (Olivia, Charlie and Violet) trying to communicate with the dead. Riley and Jacob, fearing what the portal might bring, set about triangulating radio signals from multiple transmitters to close it for good.

Over the course of the night, Riley and Jacob experience strange supernatural events, confront the posse of teenagers dabbling with powers they know not, and grapple with the return of World War II era ghosts. But what came as a real surprise for me was the reveal that Alex, the protagonist of the first game, was also reaching through the void in order to break herself and her friends out of the time loop they found themselves in five years ago.

It all culminates in one last confrontation at King Edward Island where one person must sacrifice themselves to close the interdimensional rift for good. In my playthrough, that choice was easy. I picked Olivia.

One might wonder why I would pick a young teenager over an expectant mother or Jacob but since the death of her parents, Olivia hasn’t had much to live for. But by choosing to stay behind, she is able to be a version of the parents she lost, which was her entire goal from the very beginning.

Oxenfree II doesn’t have much in way of complicated gameplay. It essentially has the player click, or use the directional keys, to move Riley around a static screen. While there are the occasional objects Riley can interact with, it’s actually the dialogue that serves as the basis for the game (and the tuning of a radio). Whether that was fleshing out the lore behind the island and its cult, or the characters.

What I liked most were the visions where Riley was visited by her future son, Rex. Through these interactions, we were able to see the parallels between their relationship and the one Riley shared with her father. And I, always keen to know more about the people around me, or the fictional characters I play around with, can fill in the gaps and feed my own headcanon for how things shake out.

There are only a few things though that I wish could have been answered such as the identity of Rex’s father and if Michael, who I brought back in the first game, would be considered a canon event at all.

But while I liked the story for what it was, I felt like the decisions I had to make didn’t make much impact to the direction the story could have taken barring a few side conversations with people over the radio. This meant that no matter what I chose, the ending would always be predetermined with a few select differences based on the person I chose to close the rift.

Given this was the last game I played in 2023, I was hoping for something with a bit more oomph. Unfortunately, Oxenfree II was a slowburn fizzle. The mystery too, with the floating bodies and distorted voices, added a bit of variety, did keep me invested in the story but didn’t give me any unsettling vibes like games such as the Little Nightmares series or Limbo. Then again this may have been because of my already high expectations for the story, which was let down by the fairly rote story I was given.

On a completely unrelated note, by the time this post goes up, I should be overseas with bleachpanda. The two of us are probably somewhere in South Korea, fumbling our way through the language to visit iconic sites around the country. So, if you see two Asian-Australians either lounging in a cafe or struggling to have ourselves understood, come and say ‘hi.’ I know bleachpanda will probably wonder how I might have written a whole blog post while she wasn’t looking but as I’ve told them countless times, I have these scheduled and the actual moment I’ve written these posts is sometime in the not too distant past.

Of course, given I’ve gone overseas, that does mean there WILL be travel posts coming to the blog soon!

While bleachpanda has made it VERY clear they don’t like my idea of ugly candid photos, I’ll strive to take some nonetheless. My humour, as always, is stuck somewhere between that of a 6-year-old and dark dry wit.

Doubtless, I won’t be able to UPLOAD any of the photos of bleachpanda to my blog but I’ll most assuredly be using them to torment my erstwhile travelling companion as we traipse around Asia.

Heal the World

On By kyndarisLeave a comment

Despite being nominated for several categories at the 2023 The Game Awards, Spider-Man 2 did not manage to win any of the prestigious trophies. A fact that has been both lambasted and poked fun of on the internet. But when you consider the sheer quantity, as well as the quality, of games that came out, the fact Spider-Man 2 was even nominated is proof of its greatness. Especially when it was going up against heavy-weights Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Final Fantasy XVI, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros: Wonder.

2023, it should be noted, was a game of big releases.

Following on from several strategy role-playing games I was stuck playing, it was only in the latter half of the year I was able to play catch-up on many of the triple-A titles. Even now, though, I have yet to tackle Final Fantasy XVI, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2.

To be fair, I’ve bought all the titles. They are, unfortunately, just sitting around waiting for me to devote the necessary time to make the adventure worthwhile.

Once I do, of course, be sure to see posts pop up throughout the year. Even as I try to balance work, my writing hobbies, the books I read, shows I watch (at time of writing, I’ve gotten into Blue Eye Samurai), and whatever travel I also have planned. In fact, I should hopefully be publishing the sequel to Wild Child soon. After pounding out the chapters during a period where everything has gone back to normal, taking the time out to write a full-length novel is very time-consuming. Not to mention the editing I’m doing (which would probably be better if I had an actual editor and at least one beta reader) to polish up a few things.

In any case, the story of my journey with Spider-Man 2 began not when I popped the disc into my PlayStation 5. Nay, the story begins with the day I purchased the game at a store in the heart of Sydney CBD. I was catching up with a high school friend and had just seen a Facebook post about an exhibit in Barangaroo. After dinner, off we trotted – after much convincing on my part that a walk down to Barangaroo would be for the best – to take in the flipped truck suspended by spider webs and New York policemen milling about telling everyone within earshot that, “There was nothing to see here.” The trip, capped off with a photo of the truck, was made memorable when I muttered under my breath how the hired actors were pretending to be NPCs. Only, of course, to be remonstrated by my friend for saying such a thing.

And honestly, it it is true that I shouldn’t be calling the people I see only in passing as NPCs. After all, in their own mind, they’re the main character and I’m the NPC lurking in the background of their story. Which only serves to drive home the disconnection we have with the people around us or who might share the daily commute with us.

Still, what a thing to say to dismiss another person.

I’m reminded of a scene in the book Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which my workplace bookclub read, where Sam called his best friend, Max, an NPC right to his face. I know Max didn’t take it to heart but what a cruel and heartless thing to say to someone who has supported you throughout your game developing journey and is then ruthlessly gunned down on the pretense he was you by angry gamers.

Anyways, back to Spider-Man 2. The game follows on from Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Ten months on from the last game, we see Peter Parker and Miles Morales working together to keep New York safe. And though the Avengers seem to exist in the world – what with Avenger Tower jutting up above the New York skyline – we never see these other superheroes once during the struggles Peter and Miles face. Nor do we see cameos from the likes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist or Luke Cage.

Which is such a shame.

But it also highlights the problem of having so many comic-book superheroes call New York home.

Spider-Man 2 starts with Peter taking on a job as a physics teacher at Brooklyn Visions, the school Miles attends. As he’s teaching them about surface tension, Sandman attacks. Torn between his responsibilities as civilian Peter and that of Spider-Man, Peter joins up with Miles to take down Flint Marko in an epic showdown that saves the city. Unfortunately, due to dereliction of duty as a teacher, Peter is fired. A side-effect of being a superhero who keeps his identity hidden (although given how often his friends have since said his name during the game, I’m surprised it’s still a secret).

From there, the game introduces us to Kraven, a man who seeks his death in glorious combat with a mighty opponent. As such, he captures Mister Negative and Scorpion while the two were being transported from the Raft. He even administers a high dose of Lizard serum into Dr Curt Connors to face up against a worthwhile opponent.

It is only when Peter acquires the symbiote that excitement enters Kraven’s eyes. In the latter chapters, he fights against Peter and demands that our erstwhile hero stop holding back even showing off a battered Miles. Before Peter can kill him, Miles intervenes and Peter is then freed from the symbiote’s control.

Of course, Spider-Man 2 is not content to have Kraven as the big bad for this game. Oh no.

As many know, once you’ve introduced the symbiote, you’ve also introduced Venom. But instead of Eddie Brock taking on the mantle of our favourite anti-hero, it is instead Harry Osborn.

Though Harry was only mentioned briefly in the first game, in Spider-Man 2, Harry returns from a long sabbatical in Europe and supposedly cured from his terminal illness. Harry is introduced early, hiring Peter to work at his environmental technology startup called the Emily-May foundation where the pair can pursue their childhood dream of “healing the world.” Unfortunately, during the events of Spider-Man 2, with Peter taking on the symbiote, Harry’s health – both physical and mental – deteriorates. Desperate to return to a semblance of normality, Harry reclaims the symbiote and is then transformed into the Venom we all know and love.

He is later stopped by the combined efforts of Miles, Peter and MJ. The final battle leaves Harry comatose and our heroes shattered once again by the sacrifices they had to make in order to save the city they call home.

What I liked most about Spider-Man 2, however, as a criminology major in university, was its focus on rehabilitation. Many of the supervillains that Spider-Man fans have come to know and love have been reformed in some way or another. Be that Tombstone to Mysterio. Many of these villains have chosen to turn over a new leaf and assimilate back into society. The most tragic and most human is the story of Sandman. Threatened by Kraven’s hunters, fearing for his daughter and not being heard by those in power, he resorts to the only thing he knows in order to garner attention: attacking the city.

It is a tale as old as time.

And helps support the tenets of strain theory in crime sociology.

Of course, there are a myriad reasons why people turn to crime.

But these glimpses are so important to understand the complexities of why someone might resort to doing something illegal. And it’s a far better exploration of redemption than what Spider-Man: No Way Home attempted. As I’ve stated before, change takes time. While No Way Home plucked our villains during their final showdown with the various Spider-Man across the multiverse, Spider-Man 2 shows the results of Mysterio and Sandman having served their time and seeking to mend their ways.

This all culminates in the interactions with Mister Negative and Miles Morales. And while Miles cannot bring himself to forgive what Mister Negative did, he is able to move past the anger.

The other message in Spider-Man 2, of course, is that some burdens cannot be taken on alone. The tagline for the game is: ‘Be Greater. Together.’ Something I wish more people would take to heart. When a community comes together, there is so much more that can be done. Unfortunately, the Western world prefers to champion individualistic effort over those of a collective.

Capitalism seems to forget that if you don’t have your workers or people who can afford to purchase your goods, then what’s the whole point? And if you’re curious where this odd segue came from, I’m currently playing through Octopath Traveler 2 and Partitio’s story is very much of a big-hearted merchant who looks out for his town. His dream, funnily enough, is to destroy the devil known as poverty. Something our modern world still has not been able to solve (but could. If there was any profit to it. But who are we kidding? There isn’t.)

From a combat perspective, Spider-Man 2 changes things up a little by introducing a parry mechanism as well as a few other new abilities for the Spider-Men to enjoy. While this kept the game lively, it annoyed me that I needed a full Focus bar in order to heal. This was especially difficult in the latter boss battles against Scream and Venom. I’m not sure if the reason why I struggled through them was because I hadn’t topped up my Focus bars prior to the mission or if it was simply me not gelling with Peter’s abilities.

What I do know was that I hated how the attack you couldn’t dodge, but had to parry, was highlighted in red and that the unblockable attack was blue. Especially when the game had trained you early on with managing a perfect dodge when the spider sense was red. It also didn’t help that in the battles with Scream and Venom, these indicators didn’t last for very long and I couldn’t cancel an animation if I was already mid-dodge to parry an attack.

At least the checkpointing was generous!

As for other gameplay moments, I had to say the swinging was smooth as butter and the web wings added some great diversity to travel. Especially with the wind tunnels all around the city to help one get from Point A to Point B.

And because of these quality-of-life improvements, I didn’t feel like the new map, which now included Queens and Brooklyn, was that much larger than the original Spider-Man game or as time-consuming to get through like a map in the open-world Assassin’s Creed titles.

So, while Spider-Man 2 didn’t win at The Game Awards, it certainly won my heart as the second last game I played in the year 2023. And I’m certainly excited to see what Insomniac cooks up next, despite the hack. The studio is great at nailing story, gameplay and world while serving up side-dishes of heart. Best of all, it didn’t have me chasing after pigeons!

In a year teeming with big titles, Spider-Man 2 was everything I wanted in an open-world game without overstaying its welcome.

Thank you Insomniac and here’s hoping Spider-Man 3 brings on the Green Goblin in all his glory! Oh, and Silk. I’m curious to how they’ll insert that comic storyline into the game.

Isu Origins

On By kyndarisLeave a comment

The Assassin’s Creed games began with a simple story about erstwhile bartender Desmond Miles reliving the memories of his ancestor: Altair while being held by a sinister organisation known as Abstergo. Over the years, however, the franchise has grown, spawning spin-offs and trying new things by adding different features to spruce up the gameplay. Unfortunately, as the series has continued Assassin’s Creed has become far too convoluted for its own good. Heck, even Desmond was killed off before being replaced by Layla Hassasn. She too, however, was set aside at the end of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (a game, I should note, which took me about 150 hours to complete).

Enter Basim: an assassin from the ninth century, who also served a pivotal role in the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed title and introduced protagonist Eivor to the Hidden Ones. Basim, of course, is also the Isu Loki. The Isu, for those unfamiliar with the games, are an ancient and highly advanced species of humanoid beings that have taken on mythological connotations. They were the ones who created the Pieces of Eden, and were responsible for the creation of the humans. A cataclysmic event before written history wiped out many of them although some have survived. Including, of course, Loki after his consciousness was reborn.

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is a game that harks back to the Assassin’s Creed games of old. Instead of the open world role-playing games from the last three titles in the series, they have returned to a much more contained world. Mirage, it should be noted, is set before Valhalla. When we first meet the Isu Loki, he is naught but a street thief with no knowledge of his Isu heritage.

The Basim we meet is a man with a good heart and a strong sense of justice. Life on the streets of Baghdad is not easy. Doing odd jobs for the Hidden Ones has helped him feel like he’s contributing to his community but it’s not enough. Basim, we soon learn, wishes to join them. Something his lifelong friend, Nehal, disagrees with.

Still, Basim is a stumble young man. Sensing an opportunity to impress the Hidden Ones, he decides to break into the Winter Palace and steal whatever treasures the Hidden Ones have their eye on. Things go from bad to worse when after witnessing a meeting between members of The Order of the Ancients and the Caliph, he stumbles upon an ancient artefact. Upon activating it, he is discovered by the Caliph and kills the man in self-defence.

After a fraught escape, Basim is left with nowhere to turn to. Roshan takes him back to Alamut and serves as his assassin mentor.

So ends the action-packed prologue of Mirage.

It isn’t long before Basim is sent back to Baghad following a fellow assassin’s discovery and failure to track down the members of the Order of the Ancients that hold the city in their vice-like grip. And just like the earlier games, Basim must slowly track down clues around the city to deduce who each Order member is before assassinating them.

While there isn’t much variety in the type of missions, I still enjoyed my time exploring Baghdad and learning a variety of facts about the culture. After reading about the Silk Roads and how pivotal the Middle East was back in those days as a hub for trade. So much of the history during the early Middle Ages I used to know has been so centralised in Western Europe, it is refreshing to see how interconnected the world was outside of it. Yes, Western Europe might have seen economic, intellectual and cultural decline but this was not so for so many other countries and budding empires.

Honestly, the best part of the Assassin’s Creed games has been the opportunity to learn about history through a medium that is fun and engaging. I might not retain everything I’ve learned but for those similarly minded, it can spark curiosity about the world around them.

And given how little the Western world knows about Muslims and their history (as well as the trouble between Israel and Palestine), learning about these people is a great tool to understanding their perspective and to garner sympathy.

The Middle East has such a rich history that the Western world has ignored or taken advantage of. Were it not for how Western Europeans have exploited their land, and gone to war with them during the Crusades, the possibilities of what might have been achieved are endless.

Anyways, after identifying the Head of the Order, Basim confronts his mentor, Roshan, regarding who he is and of the secrets lying underneath Alamut. It later turns out, the Hidden Ones were guarding a ruin from the time of Those Who Came Before. It later turns out, the ruin was the prison where Loki was held. This is further emphasised by the nightmares our protagonist experienced throughout the game of a terrifying djinni.

Mirage ends with Basim embracing his identity as Loki despite Roshan’s attempts to get him to leave the past behind, thus providing some much needed backstory to the antagonist Eivor faced in Valhalla. Where Ubisoft goes next with this storyline is anyone’s guess given Loki’s immediate mission to find those who had wronged him in his past. But there is little doubt he would be an asset for the current iterations of the Assassins as they struggle against the modern-day version of The Order.

From a gameplay perspective, I liked how Mirage moved away from using R1 and R2 as the attack buttons and moving it back to square on my PlayStation controller. There is also a renewed focus back to stealth with Basim having many tools at his disposal to dispatch unsuspecting guards. Yes, they might be a little dimwitted as they lose their fellow guards to the wind but there’s something fun about taking them down. What I didn’t like, however, was the addition of a stamina bar and unblockable attacks which were denoted by enemies flashing red (this was particularly hard if one had just used eagle sense beforehand).

When did these games suddenly become like Dark Souls? Why is there a need for a stamina bar? I know, Ubisoft, that you don’t want players to wail on guards like they did in the open-world games but there are so many other options at your disposal than incorporating a stamina bar!

That aside, I did notice Basim’s freerunning parkour wasn’t as tight as I would like. There were several occasions where my erstwhile assassin would veer off to clamber up another object rather than the one I’d directed him to. Then, of course, there was his stubborn insistence to DIVE into the water rather than leap onto land even though the jump would barely be an inconvenience.

I was also irritated, for a few missions, with how quickly enemy guards could detect Basim. Perhaps this was my own inability to track down nearby enemies but let me just blame the game, okay?

These gripes aside, Mirage still remained an enjoyable game. Especially because it was a much smaller open world than the giants visited upon by Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. There was no swapping out of weapons or equipment based upon stats. Basim was equipped with sword, dagger and hidden blade only. The simplified skill tree and the focus on just one city was a breathe of fresh air considering the open-world exhaustion I’d faced although Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe does promise a return to it. Still, the concept behind it – that of the witch trails in the Holy Roman Empire – does tickle my fancy.

And while Mirage doesn’t break any new ground, I very much enjoyed the setting and the return to a simpler time when it came to gameplay. If there is a return to a bigger open-world, though, we’ll have to see if the story will be enough to pull me through as I’ve faced significant fatigue of overly long games that take me a month or two just to get through and add little to the world because they thought including frivolous points of interest was the best way to make the world interesting.

Ice to Meet You

On By kyndarisLeave a comment

After changing my preferences to women, it’s been much harder to meet new people. Unlike men, women are more secure about who they are. Or they just don’t use dating apps as religiously. In any case, my profile didn’t receive much in the ways of ‘likes’ and even when the two of us mutually decided to ‘match’ and chat, inevitably, they would stop responding after one or two exchanges. And given how ambivalent I am to the whole dating scene, when the conversations die off, I’m not all that ruffled. Instead, I just move on and try my luck elsewhere or sink a few more hours into a game.

In fact, in most conversations, I’m more reactive rather than proactive in my questioning. It’s hard for me to garner curiosity for someone I don’t really know. Especially because I’ve already learned from a young age not to dump on others about my niche interests. Or asking anything too nosy. Most of the time, these things come out in their own time. I’m a great listener, after all, and I tend to file away any and all scraps thrown my way.

Honestly, it’s just easier for everyone involved for me to sit back and observe the person opposite me as they rant and rave about what they like. But also, I just find it very hard to interrupt others.

Despite all this, I managed to have a meet-up with Eivor! That’s their codename because in one of their pictures they were dressed as a viking. Unlike all my other dates, this time I asked them for a meet-up (something I honestly hate doing), but considering she was the one who suggested adding each other first on Facebook Messenger (so she could send me pictures of her pets), I bucked up the courage to arrange a face-to-face meeting. After all, I’m an independent 31-year-old woman who don’t need no man!

[As an aside to all this, I’m still occasionally chatting with Dikottir. So, maybe I do still WANT a man? Who knows.]

And honestly, it was better that I took the initiative. Elsewise I might even now be waiting for someone to ask me out. Or to have someone reach out to me to invite me to an event.

It’s why I’ve bitten the bullet so many times in organising catch-ups with my work friends. For if not me, then who?

While books and video games are very important to me (and make any description of my weekends sound very boring – at least to me), but there’s something about maintaining my social connections that also resonates with me.I can’t live in my head forever. And being chronically online would also be terrible for my mental health. I mean, what if I fell in with the wrong crowd that enabled all my worst traits? Or who I could compare my self to and think: yes, I’m far more normal than they are and so my mental health isn’t flagging despite the fact I had a psychotic breakdown leading to hospitalisation for a week (if that’s sounding very specific, it’s because it is and that’s a whole other story to tell).

Anyways, long story short, Eivor and I had chatted for a while. I learned she was into sports and thought going on an ice-skating trip would be a bit different to all my usual first-dates at cafes. I arrived to the rink early. Unfortunately, Eivor was running a little late as she had chosen to save a little on money by doing an Uber Pool. But once she did arrive (and after I’d done a few rounds on the rink in the skates the Ice Zoo provided – which were more hockey skates than the blue skates usually handed out), we chatted as we circled the rink.

Mostly, it ended up as Eivor asking me more questions of me than I her. But given the amount of children celebrating their birthdays there, and the music, it wasn’t exactly the most conducive environment for a chat.

I learned she had a brother and was homeschooled. That she was often told she was quite ‘normal’ for not going through the usual curriculum when it came to learning but she was thankful her mother allowed to explore the subjects they were interested in. Including getting involved in a robotics competition run by Macquarie University. Something that sounded so cool to me and I hate myself for not asking more about it.

Unfortunately, being homeschooled meant she didn’t have an ATAR to allow her easy access into a degree. Eivor told me she had to sit for the SAT and when she was finally admitted into tertiary education, the one major difficulty she faced were standardised exams.

And honestly, so true! Standardised tests are the worst. They don’t even test anything practical about a subject – merely how well you might have crammed the information into your head the night before. It’s a complete and utter joke and doesn’t demonstrate one’s actual knowledge.

Once our ice-skating session was over (in which I embarrassed myself by trying to do my usual T-stop on the skates but being encumbered by a weighted penguin, resulting in me overbalancing and falling on the ice), we had a simple affair of chicken nuggets and chips at the cafe located at the rink. Although I did offer Eivor a ride to another suburb or a restaurant close by, she refused.

Which, honestly, is fair.

We were strangers and for all she knew, I COULD have been a serial killer (spoilers: I’m not. In fact, I’m always in fear of my own life when I go out on dates. Beyond that, she was taller than me and could probably deadlift me if she so chose.). It doesn’t help that so many of my friends have written into their wills that if they were to vanish under mysterious circumstances, I’d be to blame.

I should work on stamping out such baseless rumours. Permanently.

It wasn’t the best food to have. And it didn’t fill me up at all considering this was supposed to be lunch. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to pressure Eivor into anything and had let her take the lead. From there, we investigated the nearby antiques store. RIGHT as it began to sprinkle down heavy drops of RAIN!

Given I lived in one of the neighbouring suburbs, my mind instantly turned to the LAUNDRY I had painstakingly washed and hung out to dry (thankfully, it was still quite a warm day and when I got back home to check, they weren’t as wet as I thought despite the sudden sun shower).

Antique stores, it should be known, aren’t places I normally frequent. Yes, I visited Dirty Janes in Bowral during the light show back in June this year but old pieces of furniture isn’t something terribly enticing to someone like me. Probably because they aren’t exactly the ancient artefacts I would hope to find in an archaeological dig. The most interesting things I DID see were taxidermy animals and a few Chinese vases. Unfortunately, there were not enough weapons to catch my eye at the exhibit. Now, Dirty Janes had a veritable display of knives to peruse. As well as a few cases filled with butterflies that would have looked delightful.

And so ended my date with Eivor.

Throughout it all, there wasn’t much of a spark between us. Like many of the men, I wasn’t filled with any kind of lustful thoughts or a desire to know as much as I could about her. In fact, I think what I felt was a combination of anxiety (and wishing to impress) as well as mild disappointment.

I had been hoping to be wowed but Eivor was like any person I might walk by on my daily commute to the office. Any curiosity I had remained entirely detached like she was another face in a crowd of thousands.

Similarly, I didn’t feel like she was all that taken away by who I was. Some of that might be my below average self-worth, esteem and confidence talking but Eivor and I haven’t chatted much since the encounter out on the ice. In fact the conversation have all but dried up. So, I suppose it’s back to the drawing board for me.

It doesn’t help that I find it immensely boring to talk about myself. After all, there’s nothing truly exciting about my life (something I was warned not to say to strangers during a one-year-old’s birthday party. Of course, when you don’t know ANYONE at the birthday party and no-one extends a hand to chat with you – usually that’s me actually – it’s a difficult endeavour). But whenever I try to talk about a few of my passion projects, the conversation always seems to jump to another topic.

And given I’m more a Wednesday Addams wallflower than an Enid SInclair extrovert, it’ll probably keep on being the same old story every time.

In fact, I told one of my friends that I think a possible ideal partner for me would be to have an excitable golden retriever chasing after my grouchy cat arse.

But beggars can’t be choosers in the game of love. So, I guess we’ll simply have to see where the next step takes me. Or I can just be satisfied with being single. And honestly? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.