I’m 24 and by no mean the typical person of my age or supposed demographic, so lemme try my hand at this one:
I am brutally bad at worthwhile interpersonal human interaction with any type of person but my own. Just horrible. I can fake it, but it’s like faking an orgasm: you should be enjoying it, but you aren’t, and that just makes it even more miserable. I can do smalltalk, but I despise it. It seems like an utter waste of time. (Talking on the phone is almost as much fun.)
I’m atrocious at matching my clothes. I’d probably wear two shades of blue at once if I hadn’t been told not to. If I’m not thinking in the morning during my “What’s reasonable to wear today?” 30 seconds of debate, there’s absolutely no telling what I’ll wear. Shorts in winter? If it’s warm enough, sure.
I have a hell of a time, even after years of subjecting myself to absolute cretins in the name of forcing it to get better, controlling my temper. I pick fights sometimes without even meaning to. I can be crass, bitter, rude, short and a pompous jackass in one sentence and not even realize it, because my tone appears other than I mean it to. (This is especially fun given how much text-based communication I do.)
In short, I’m not very good at following the rules when it comes to various social niceties.
Playing Diablo 2, or whatever, what I’m wearing is usually immaterial. There, there’s a point to wearing one thing over another; if I want increased cold resistance, I put a different charm in my inventory, and if I want more magicfind, I equip my Skullder’s Ire. There’s a reason for what I’m wearing; more to the point, it’s something I can understand.
Conversing with my fellow gamers (assuming I’m playing online) is a matter of very short sentences and having to weather the occasional immature little ::checks forum:: ickyface. If someone pisses me off, I don’t have to sit there and weather it. I can leave, hostile (as in, challenge to a fight) the player or squelch (make it so I can’t hear) anyone at all. In short, I don’t have to deal with people making my life uncomfortable any more than I want to.
There is no smalltalk. There’s no “So, lovely weather we’ve been having.” People care about the drops, your gear, that sort of thing. They care about things related to the game, which you must also care about, else you wouldn’t be there. Contrast this with going to a grocery store, a necessary evil for me. I have no deep, abiding desire to see anyone at all there, and if someone starts to chat me up, a little voice goes on says, “This is so bloody boring.”
Gaming removes a hell of a lot of life’s often-necessary evils and replaces them with things that might not seem as relevant, but sure do appeal to the things I like.
There’s the issue of it being something I’m good at. I’m not good at things I don’t care about, and trying harder is going to frustrate me before it pays off enough to be worth it. But I am good at some things I do care about, and pursuing those things seems to me kinda an obvious thing; I do it because I like it, I like it because I’m good at it, and I’m good at it in part because I like it.
Lemme use another sex comparison. Let’s say you’re trying to get laid (which is not something any teenage boy has ever tried to do, to be sure). You court someone highly sought, you get a date, a kiss, etc. A month goes by (since I’ve never really dated as such, I haven’t even the most remote idea of how quickly teenagers go), and you get some under-the-shirt action. Another two months, and you’re spending time together with top and pants off.
Another two months, and the lot of the clothing is in a pile by the bed, you’re sore when you walk, and life’s ills occasionally disappear for an hour or two a day.
Now let’s say you have the manual for a game and see this ridiculous item that’s not only one of the best items in the game but really, really tough to get. You start out with almost nothing (a weapon and a shield, if you’re lucky). First you’re playing just to survive and advance. Getting that item is at least months away, unless some kind soul decides to just give you one, in which case you still probably can’t equip it yet.
But let’s say you have to work for it. You work at it for a month or more, just to get the character to the point where s/he can search for items that would give her/him a better chance of finding that item.
Finally, you find the gear you need to use to search for that item. And you have to make a new character to get more out of it. Another month or so properly building that character, all so you can do dozens of runs (think of them like dates), hoping that the skills you’ve acquired and the time you’ve put in, all of that effort, will lead to shiny newness at some point.
And then you get it. It’s beautiful and spectacular and you just stare at it for what seems to your ignorant friends like hours at a time. You’ve worked for months to get this thing, and it’s finally here. All that work. And you can use it all the bloody time. It makes your life more fun, it makes your other pursuits easier, all of that.
's that make a bit more sense? Yes, we’re working outside technical reality, but that’s often the point. And yes, having sex is (for me) more fun than finding various items, but don’t think I haven’t come across as a bit disconnected from reality due to various finds in Diablo 2:) Chronos, Who_me?, Hirka and Micah, along with the old crew (Rasa is still here, but I haven’t seen lno, Maeglin, Nen, voltaire or theckhd in ages.), would tell you otherwise, I bet, if you asked:)
Now. Anyone wanna try explaining to me why it’s 7 a.m. here and some other hour number somewhere else? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the time to be universal?
