What Games Teach Us About Loneliness: A Quiet Night in Camden

I used to think winning was the point.

Now I know it’s the pause between spins that holds me.

In my small flat in Camden, where rain taps the glass like a distant samba drum, I play—not to win, but to remember. The machines don’t offer fortune; they echo the spaces between breaths. Each card is a stanza in a silent poem written by someone who learned to sit still.

I don’t chase patterns. I watch them.

The RNG doesn’t care if you win or lose—it only knows how long you’ve waited. And when the lights dim, and no one comes, I close my eyes and feel the night—not as escape, but as return.

There’s a reason why these games feel sacred.

They were never designed for jackpots or bonuses. They were carved from loneliness—the kind that lingers after midnight, when carnival ends and all that’s left is quiet.

I started with single cards. Low stakes. Thirty minutes at most.

Then came the nights I couldn’t sleep.

Not because I lost—but because I remembered too much.

The bonus cards? They weren’t free. They were gifts from myself—to myself—in languages I’d forgotten how to say out loud.

We are told to play responsibly.

But responsibility isn’t about limits—it’s about presence.

When you stop playing, you don’t walk away from the machine—you walk toward yourself.

And there—in that quiet hour before dawn— you find something else: a voice that remembers you, as if it had always been waiting.