On Saturday he feels like shit. More than usual.

He plays video games; MOBAs, and he apparently plays like shit because it's more toxic than usual today. His team hates him. Every random sarcastic ping on a part of the map is obviously something he deserves for being such an awful player. Who'd want to have him on their team? Someone makes a comment about the items he bought and usually he'd just ignore it, players of this game are just Like That, but today it hits way too hard.

He mutes everyone and keeps playing. That goes fine for a while until one of them starts following him around and using their abilities on him, even though friendly fire isn't a thing here. They hate him that much huh? Well, fine. He didn't need that game. He rage-quits, disconnects right in the middle of a match and eats the temp-ban about it.

...He goes and gets fast food. Traffic is nerve-wracking. He spends half the trip worrying about whether he's going the right speed, or following too close, or if his radio is audible to anyone else and he picked an annoying song- Better to just turn it off. The cashiers at the fast food place could take his order, but he can see the dead look in their eyes. They'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, than taking his order. So he'll order on the app instead. But they still have to MAKE it and bring it out to him. They're being paid about it. He'll even tip! It's fine. It's FINE.

He doesn't talk to anyone and tries not to make eye contact. He sits there on his phone, reading a long webnovel and getting free refills. One of the place's staff keeps walking past with orders and he swears she's judging him for hanging out for more than twenty minutes but if they want to kick him out they can say so.

He really is in a terrible mood today. Maybe he needs sunlight or exercise. Maybe he needs vitamins and veggies?

He goes to a grocery store, and his experience there is much the same. Keep his head pointed down and don't inflict his company on anyone more than he has to. He uses the self checkout and microwaves himself some frozen veggies back in his little apartment. It seems to help. The sick feeling in his gut recedes. His shoulders unclench. Blessed introvert time. He takes a nap. Then wakes up again, bored. He can't go for a walk, who would want to look at his shabby lanky self? More video games? ...Chores?

...Singleplayer is better than multiplayer. Everyone hates him, but he's not bothering anyone in singleplayer is he? So it's fine. He'll play factory-building games for the next two days. Interspersed with reading updates on web serials and definitely not leaving any comments that nobody wants to read anyway. It's fine.

Oh god. His life is over. No more leaving comments or posting, no more multiplayer, who the fuck would voluntarily interact with him? It's a wonder he hasn't been banned from everything already. He'll just have to police himself. He'll never be able to get another job when he inevitably gets fired in disgust. If he gets sick there's no way he can go bother a doctor so maybe he'll just die.

He writes a long apology post on all his social media accounts, then uninstalls his chat apps from his phone and desktop. Except the one that work uses. Nobody wants to hear his whining and complaining about himself, so might as well remove the temptation.

Work is... An experience. He works from home, doing random IT work. Fix the website. Migrate the data. Un-break whatever the hell the customer did on this app. Write a script to do this and that. There are ticket queues. He can open one, comprehend it, and fix it without having to actually talk to anyone most of the time. Everyone hates getting random faceless emails saying 'your problem is fixed now' from the ticket system but at least there's that level of detachment. He takes a few customer calls, and one rambling conversation from a colleague, and it's FINE. They called him, and they're getting something out of it, using him as an acceptable target for their complaints, getting him to fix it- He's not sure why Joe talked to him about that one video game for ten minutes, was he hinting at something? Does he want the rest of the series as a gift? He doesn't even KNOW Joe very well, sheesh, talk about presumptuous.

He's doing an incredibly bad job, going by the tone of his boss's texts and emails. Maybe something is wrong with the way he's writing? He's being too casual. It's unprofessional. Unsightly. His emails get more formal and thorough. He neurotically writes an overly-detailed progress report. He stays silent and stone-faced on the daily standup call, like 90% of everyone there. Why did he come up with those stupid mass-meetings that involve way too many people in the first place? Everyone hates them. Everyone hates him for coming up with the idea but he can't exactly take it back now so he'll just have to deal with it.

He doesn't leave the apartment for the next three days. He has groceries. Cereal, popcorn, milk, carrots, frozen veggies, pop tarts. He will graze and subsist on those and pace the tiny room when he can't get anything out of his video games anymore for the moment. What the hell is wrong with him? Why doesn't anyone like him? He made some sort of terrible mistake, or a long long series of them, leading to this inevitable final point of no return, and now there is no fixing it. Things are ruined forever, he'll never have friends, and he can't figure out why.

He obviously can't bother anyone about this personal problem, his parents, his brother. Who wants to hear about a random middle-class cis white guy with a decent job and all the privilege whine and complain like a crybaby? Maybe a therapist or counselor? They get paid to listen to people's problems. If he's paying them, they're getting something out of it, so it's less intolerable. They're not just... Politely enduring. But that seems so fucking sad. He's not going to do it.

Maybe... Maybe he can still do things where it's just a straightforward exchange of money for goods and services. The trip to the grocery store went alright because he didn't talk to anyone. God, it's going to be such a pain never talking to anyone unless absolutely necessary, though. He won't be able to call in maintenance requests or anything, he'll have to learn to fix them himself. He'll surely be fired eventually now that he's had this realization, he's acting weird at work, even more distant and grumpy than usual. He's trying, but he's terrible at explaining, and the sheer disgust in the boss's comment, "just do your best to fix it" sends shivers down his spine. So he spends hours and hours fixing it. And... Does fix it, eventually. The site comes back up. He paranoidly, painstakingly goes over everything he can find in the back end. Tidying up. Doing little tricks to make it load faster.

...These kinds of optimizations are tedious and everyone hates doing them, but also knows they take FOREVER, so maybe if he volunteers to take on the worst part of the group's job they won't hate him as much? And he doesn't have to talk to people except once a day by writing a summary report. That sounds... Better. He spends twenty minutes agonizing over this request before sending it. Eight minutes later his boss says 'you sure?' and he takes another five minutes to reply 'yes' and then get a near instant 'ok'. And that's that.

They have dozens of client websites. He can just... Obsessively check them all, one by one. It's boring. But it's work, so, whatever, it's fine, everything is fine, his life is maybe still recoverable. He has music on- Quietly, so it doesn't bother anyone else, and he has work to do and Everything. Is. FINE.