Comment by Dove

"Every time I sat down to play [the game] it was like walking into a dark shed full of rakes, treading on one, and getting blatted in the face... and then I'd go back into the shed, thinking maybe it was just the one rake, when blat in the face again. So I thought, I'll just keep tanking the rakes and maybe I'll become psychotically in love with being rake-faced. And that's kind of what happened."

Yahtzee was talking about Dark Souls, but it applies. (Vigorously NSFW, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=STrYyhEwkbY )

That said, I think Nethack is best experienced with liberal and unapologetic spoiler use.