Being a recent convert to fighting games, I'm always sort of amazed at how much satisfaction I gain from practicing them, and how tangible the results feel. I can just drill down, focus on one technique or combo or matchup, and in an hour or so it feels as if I have a new tool under my belt—or at least, I'm less likely to mishandle an existing tool. It's rare to get that feeling from competitive video games. I click on a thousand heads in Counter-Strike and all that happens is that I get imperceptibly better at clicking on heads.
It's even more rare to get that feeling from real life.
I started gender transition roughly two years ago, depending on how you measure it. For me, it's been a process of patience and infinitesimal, incremental change. Voice training is slow. Figuring out how to present yourself is slow. Waiting for parcels (because you can't bear to buy clothes or makeup in person) is slow. Hormones... are agonisingly slow. Milestones are infrequent, and often disappointing. There's only so quickly you can shed your skin, no matter how much it hurts to wear, no matter how acutely aware you are of it stealing your life away from you.
If I wanted to do a little bit of armchair analysis, I'd start to connect the dots here. Living a life defined by frustratingly slow improvement, there's no escapism quite as appealing as the promise of tangible progress. Nail down one tiny step, experiment, practice, and click clack click clack, suddenly I have an answer for landing a counter-hit 2H on a backdashing opponent during a waxing moon on a Thursday. Back in the real world, I'm applying the same eyeliner for the hundredth time and wondering if it looks any less like someone let a toddler loose with a brown crayon. Fucked if I know. I certainly don't trust any of you to tell me.
When I first picked up Strive and was looking for friends to play with, I joked "who wants to help me with my transition?" I'm starting to wonder if Apollo had a dodgeball lined up for me that day.