Synergy
11-12-2006, 09:30 PM
I've been lurking on the Something Awful forums a lot in the past few weeks, and I've been reading this one thread that I found so fascinating, I felt the need to post it here:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=d8fb589feb696bed9988106036677dc0&threadid=2166246
My favorite post in the thread so far is from "Robot Hobo"; the poor bastard. This just left my jaw on the ground:
"I had a girlfriend a few years back, let's call her Micki.
I was in my early 20s, and she was a year or two younger. She used to spend her weekends at my place, as she still lived with her family at the time and didn't really like them. (I couldn't blame her there, but we won't go into that)
For my birthday, she bought me a copy of EverQuest, saying she thought I had been asking for it. I didn't really understand this. My only exposure to the game at this point (back when EQ was very new) was creepy guys at work who could talk about nothing else. I judged the game itself based on the players I knew, so I was pretty sure the only things I had said about it were very negative. Still, October 7 rolls around, and Micki gives me a copy of the game wrapped in a bow.
I was too nice to say "I don't fucking want this" when it seemed that she had gotten me something she thought I wanted. It was still $50 back then too, which was quite a lot of money for her at the time. So I made every effort to appear touched, and tried very hard to like the present. I later found out that I had been playing into Micki's hands the entire time. It was a trap.
I installed it, signed up for the account, and began playing. Within about 30 minutes, I realized I wasn't having any fun. Within about an hour, I couldn't even feign interest anymore. I stopped playing, and Micki asked if she could give it a try. I said “sure, why not.” So she made a character and began playing. She continued playing for the rest of the weekend… all of the weekend, every waking moment. At the time I thought "oh, well at least I found a girlfriend who lives video games," not realizing how much of an understatement that would turn out to be.
The next weekend, she was at my place again. She wasn't there long before she fired up the computer and EQ. That's ok, I wanted to play some other game I had gotten anyway, (Final Fantasy 7 or 8) and it was all in the same room... it would mean I wouldn't have to feel bad about spending so much time playing my game too. After a few hours, I got bored and did something else. She did not. She only stopped playing for meals, bathroom breaks, and when she needed to sleep... which she now did less of.
This trend continued, and actually got worse over time. Every weekend involved her spending three days glued to my computer. We didn't go anywhere, she didn't do anything else, and she found new and innovative ways to pay less and less attention to me. I built a second computer, since I actually wanted to be able to use a computer on the weekends. They were on the same desk... and eventually she took that one over most of the time for strategy guides, guild pages, maps, etc. So I still had no computer. Her computer at home was old, and wouldn't play EQ, so she could only play when she was at my place.
I complained about this, and she said she was sorry. She seemed to think my problem was that she took over my copy of EQ. She thought up a solution though. She bought me another copy of EQ, so I could play too. Somehow, this seemed like the logical solution to her. Not really knowing what else to do, I decided to try again to play and enjoy the game. This began my trend of only ever getting to level 6 in any MMORPG before getting bored and re-rolling a new character. A trend I have not broken since. Go ahead, ask any of the ten or more gnomish magicians named "Waffle" who I created, played to 5 or 6, and deleted.
Eventually I couldn't talk to her easily, since she stopped noticing things outside of the game. If I tried to talk to her in-game, she even hardly noticed. Back then it was fairly impossible for a high and low level character to team up effectively, so I don't think we once grouped together in the game. I didn't play much anyway, because it still wasn't fun to me. I left her alone one day at my place while I ran some errands for my parents. (she was too busy to accompany me) When I got back, she had commandeered my other account and computer. She was two-boxing now. So once again I usually couldn't use my computer on the weekends.
Things actually kept going downhill from there. She noticed less and less of the world around her when she was playing. If I walked right up to her and called her name, she didn't hear it... it was like I wasn't there. For a while I had to tap her on the shoulder or shake her slightly to get her attention, since speaking simply did not work. After a while, this stopped working too, and the only way to rouse her was to shake her disturbingly hard. At this point she would usually give an annoyed "what?" but not actually avert her eyes from the monitor.
The times she wasn't at the computer, which were only the times when we weren't at my place, she acted like nothing was wrong. I got the impression that she really thought this was all ok. We hadn't had sex in months. I would often pretend to be asleep when she crawled into bed, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with her at that point. Once she was asleep, since she slept like the dead, I was free to get up again. I was not happy, and I was almost fascinated by how she could possibly ignore my annoyance... it was not subtle. At this point we were only still together because I didn't know how to break up with her. I'm really a damn wuss when it comes to most confrontation, besides the direct physical kind, (I was terrible in debate class, good in karate tournaments) and this was my first relationship since high school, so I didn’t have much practice at such things.
I finally sat her down and told her exactly how bothered I was. She admitted that she had only ever bought EQ in the first place because she wanted to play it. She knew she couldn't do that by herself, since she lacked the credit card/broadband/computer needed to play it. So she bought it for me for my birthday, knowing that I didn't want it, and knowing I would still sign up as not to hurt her feelings. She saw how angry I was, and right there swore that she would stop playing.
I decided to back down for the moment, since I had been in the middle of trying to tell her it was over right then. It was less that I wanted to stay with her, and more of a morbid curiosity, since I didn't actually believe she would quit playing. Astoundingly enough she didn't play EQ even once again that weekend. She didn't even talk about it. I was utterly amazed by this, and decided I would give her a second chance. I thought things might be good again; maybe I could be happy with her from now on.
The very next weekend, the next time she came to my place, she had a copy of Dark Age of Camelot with her that she really, really wanted me to install for her... That was the moment when I finally and completely gave up on her."
O_O
I'll probably never play an MMO again, and that's made even worse after reading this thread.
Discuss.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=d8fb589feb696bed9988106036677dc0&threadid=2166246
My favorite post in the thread so far is from "Robot Hobo"; the poor bastard. This just left my jaw on the ground:
"I had a girlfriend a few years back, let's call her Micki.
I was in my early 20s, and she was a year or two younger. She used to spend her weekends at my place, as she still lived with her family at the time and didn't really like them. (I couldn't blame her there, but we won't go into that)
For my birthday, she bought me a copy of EverQuest, saying she thought I had been asking for it. I didn't really understand this. My only exposure to the game at this point (back when EQ was very new) was creepy guys at work who could talk about nothing else. I judged the game itself based on the players I knew, so I was pretty sure the only things I had said about it were very negative. Still, October 7 rolls around, and Micki gives me a copy of the game wrapped in a bow.
I was too nice to say "I don't fucking want this" when it seemed that she had gotten me something she thought I wanted. It was still $50 back then too, which was quite a lot of money for her at the time. So I made every effort to appear touched, and tried very hard to like the present. I later found out that I had been playing into Micki's hands the entire time. It was a trap.
I installed it, signed up for the account, and began playing. Within about 30 minutes, I realized I wasn't having any fun. Within about an hour, I couldn't even feign interest anymore. I stopped playing, and Micki asked if she could give it a try. I said “sure, why not.” So she made a character and began playing. She continued playing for the rest of the weekend… all of the weekend, every waking moment. At the time I thought "oh, well at least I found a girlfriend who lives video games," not realizing how much of an understatement that would turn out to be.
The next weekend, she was at my place again. She wasn't there long before she fired up the computer and EQ. That's ok, I wanted to play some other game I had gotten anyway, (Final Fantasy 7 or 8) and it was all in the same room... it would mean I wouldn't have to feel bad about spending so much time playing my game too. After a few hours, I got bored and did something else. She did not. She only stopped playing for meals, bathroom breaks, and when she needed to sleep... which she now did less of.
This trend continued, and actually got worse over time. Every weekend involved her spending three days glued to my computer. We didn't go anywhere, she didn't do anything else, and she found new and innovative ways to pay less and less attention to me. I built a second computer, since I actually wanted to be able to use a computer on the weekends. They were on the same desk... and eventually she took that one over most of the time for strategy guides, guild pages, maps, etc. So I still had no computer. Her computer at home was old, and wouldn't play EQ, so she could only play when she was at my place.
I complained about this, and she said she was sorry. She seemed to think my problem was that she took over my copy of EQ. She thought up a solution though. She bought me another copy of EQ, so I could play too. Somehow, this seemed like the logical solution to her. Not really knowing what else to do, I decided to try again to play and enjoy the game. This began my trend of only ever getting to level 6 in any MMORPG before getting bored and re-rolling a new character. A trend I have not broken since. Go ahead, ask any of the ten or more gnomish magicians named "Waffle" who I created, played to 5 or 6, and deleted.
Eventually I couldn't talk to her easily, since she stopped noticing things outside of the game. If I tried to talk to her in-game, she even hardly noticed. Back then it was fairly impossible for a high and low level character to team up effectively, so I don't think we once grouped together in the game. I didn't play much anyway, because it still wasn't fun to me. I left her alone one day at my place while I ran some errands for my parents. (she was too busy to accompany me) When I got back, she had commandeered my other account and computer. She was two-boxing now. So once again I usually couldn't use my computer on the weekends.
Things actually kept going downhill from there. She noticed less and less of the world around her when she was playing. If I walked right up to her and called her name, she didn't hear it... it was like I wasn't there. For a while I had to tap her on the shoulder or shake her slightly to get her attention, since speaking simply did not work. After a while, this stopped working too, and the only way to rouse her was to shake her disturbingly hard. At this point she would usually give an annoyed "what?" but not actually avert her eyes from the monitor.
The times she wasn't at the computer, which were only the times when we weren't at my place, she acted like nothing was wrong. I got the impression that she really thought this was all ok. We hadn't had sex in months. I would often pretend to be asleep when she crawled into bed, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with her at that point. Once she was asleep, since she slept like the dead, I was free to get up again. I was not happy, and I was almost fascinated by how she could possibly ignore my annoyance... it was not subtle. At this point we were only still together because I didn't know how to break up with her. I'm really a damn wuss when it comes to most confrontation, besides the direct physical kind, (I was terrible in debate class, good in karate tournaments) and this was my first relationship since high school, so I didn’t have much practice at such things.
I finally sat her down and told her exactly how bothered I was. She admitted that she had only ever bought EQ in the first place because she wanted to play it. She knew she couldn't do that by herself, since she lacked the credit card/broadband/computer needed to play it. So she bought it for me for my birthday, knowing that I didn't want it, and knowing I would still sign up as not to hurt her feelings. She saw how angry I was, and right there swore that she would stop playing.
I decided to back down for the moment, since I had been in the middle of trying to tell her it was over right then. It was less that I wanted to stay with her, and more of a morbid curiosity, since I didn't actually believe she would quit playing. Astoundingly enough she didn't play EQ even once again that weekend. She didn't even talk about it. I was utterly amazed by this, and decided I would give her a second chance. I thought things might be good again; maybe I could be happy with her from now on.
The very next weekend, the next time she came to my place, she had a copy of Dark Age of Camelot with her that she really, really wanted me to install for her... That was the moment when I finally and completely gave up on her."
O_O
I'll probably never play an MMO again, and that's made even worse after reading this thread.
Discuss.