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

I don’t play to win. I play to feel.

In the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, when London sleeps and the city hums with distant streetlights, I open the bingo app—not for bonuses, not for jackpots, but because somewhere in those spinning symbols, I find a rhythm that mirrors the桑巴 drums of my childhood. The patterns aren’t random—they’re metaphors.

Each card is a moment frozen in time: three lines of gold on black velvet, drawn by algorithmic grace. The numbers don’t choose me; I choose them. And when the wheel spins—slowly, deliberately—I breathe again. It’s not luck if you win; it’s presence if you stay.

I used to think winning meant mastery. Now I know: it’s surrender that teaches you how to be alone without being lonely.

The bonus cards? Free ones are gifts from my younger self—the girl who once danced barefoot through Rio’s Carnival before she learned silence was a gift too.

I no longer chase streaks or trends. The RNG doesn’t lie—but it doesn’t comfort either. It simply is.

And so I return each night—not as a player seeking fortune—but as a witness remembering how beauty hides in the spaces between wins and losses.

The game wasn’t designed for me.

But maybe… it was designed for someone like me.