Here's a quote from Penny Arcade's pseudonymous Tycho Brahe (Jerry Holkins to his mother) back in 2010:
There’s quite a lot about mainstream culture that I found fundamentally incoherent before I was married, another threshold was crossed when the nurse handed me a son.... Previously, I had something like a schematic of the required emotions.... I knew what I was meant to feel, and could produce an iconic representation of that response.I assume the unwritten conclusion to this thought is, "The things they told me were true and that I faked to get along are really-for-reals true. This is a lot of feelings all at once."
I've experienced this. It's not just my lens; people treat you differently once you're married. And you get more jokes. I suspect the same holds true for having children.
I have yet to experience this emotional rush. I've noticed as a new father that you read lots of people talking about the emotional rush of it all, how in one instant they become changed people forever. I've heard this line spoken in earnestness to my face.
I have an unsupported suspicion that the flat affect is a more common result than the flood of joy and life-changed magic purported to be the standard experience. Because nobody wants to be the cinderblock who has a baby and then is like, "OK. What's next?" I certainly don't want to be that guy.
But I am! So, now what?
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I refer to Player 3 as a "need blob" because that seems to be his primary THING. He's a humanoid blob who constantly needs things. And he only has one word, so he provides fairly binary communication about those needs. And you know, that's how that's going. Standard-issue baby stuff. But I'm not filled with ineffable pride and joy and hope.
The presumption is that these feelings will arrive. I will get the jokes eventually. But I'm not clear that happens for everyone. I don't think my father ever really fell in love with me. I think I was always, on some level, an unknowable need blob to him.
I'd like my relationship with Player 3 to be different. There's still time. As long as one of us is alive, there's time. My suspicion, however, is that something less simple, less easily relateable will occur over time. I want to love him, like him, help him become a man whom everyone loves and respects back. I think I can do that without new-father effervescence.
Happy literal birthday, Player 3. We'll talk soon.
