OOOOH the Humanity! and the Shame

Hi, my name is Jordan and I play video games, as a matter of fact I admit it, I am a gamer.....(phew)

I play a lot of video games. I play all sorts of video games, but I still do other things. I am a student at ASU and I get good grades. I am a husband and think that I do at least a fair job at it. I like to do things outdoors and other things, but I like to play videogames too.

<----- this is the icon that I use to represent my gamer name that I use when I play. I am Antipunk because I love Antiflag and punk rock. I found the picture on google pics and it worked perfectly with the name so I went for it. It doesn't have any deep spiritual meaning like a chinese tattoo some drunken girl has on her lower back.

I can't even look at the page on which I am writing this, because I am so ashamed. I am ashamed that I play videogames. I am ashamed that I am a gamer. I am ashamed that I come home from work and immerse myself in a pointless universe that offers nothing substantial, longterm, or physical for me. I would rather tell you I had AIDS (I don't) or that I realized that I am a woman trapped in a man's body (I am not) than tell you that I play videogames.

This post feels like something out of AA or NA (alcoholics or narcotics anonymous). The only difference is that I don't see the damage that videogames do to me, but then again, a heroine addict probably doesn't see the damage either. Am I addicted? meh.... can't really say. I enjoy playing, but don't believe I would have withdrawals if I didn't.

So let me tell you a little story.

My wife and I both play a game called World of Warcraft, which is the most shameful of all games to play. Why is it so shameful (asks the person who has never heard of the game), because this is a game in which people create characters through which they live vicariously. This is not a game with an end. It is a life game which offers total escape from reality into dorkland with elves, demons, swords and magic. I play the game for something called arena. It's basically like a deathmatch in between teams of characters. It's short and I don't immerse myself as much in the world or lore and such. My wife plays as a social game. As you can imagine there aren't a lot of girls playing the game, and certainly not many as attractive as my wife, so she gets a lot of attention. She will not move in the game for several minutes at a time, just gabbing it up with people, anyway, on to the story. We met a couple that also plays. They live in WA and we played together and became friends (as much of a friend as you can become with someone you have never met in real life). We have known (insert last parenthesis here with the word "know" instead of "friend") them for about a year now and they recently decided that they were going to come to visit us. They made a road trip of it, visiting other friends they had never met and eventually rounding up the trip with my wife and I. I planned a couple of things, but had to work and go to school as well. What did they do on their vacation? They played World of Warcraft. I planned a day of cliff jumping on the fourth of july, but no.... they didn't want to go, they wanted to stay inside our house and play videogames. I was disappointed that we didn't actually go out and do anything, and thought that maybe they were disappointed with their vacation, but not the case. They couldn't have been happier that their vacation was filled with playing videogames in someone else's home and not their own.

I am embarrassed and ashamed that I am lumped in to the same category as these people. I am ashamed that I am categorized with forty year old virgins with coke bottle glasses. I am ashamed that I know and interact with these people.

I can feel the line in between myself and these people and it is a line that I try very hard not to cross, but on the other side of the line is a vacuum and it is hard not to get sucked over into oblivion in which your life is consumed with nothingness.

So if you ask me face to face, I will look to the ground and maybe admit that I play video games, and then turn around and try to find the nearest hole in the wall to crawl up in and die.