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wow...just...wow
As an adult, I’ve traded a shame-filled admission with dear friends here and there, of course, but for many, many adolescent years, I held my game-playing in secret. Only my immediate family was allowed security clearance to this classified information. If asked, they would tell you this was not exactly the privilege one might think, as they were often met with severe mood swings and rage-filled outbursts when interrupting an oh-so-important quest to (I don’t know) collect twelve wild boar tusks. During that era of my life, my obsession with gnomes, mages, elixirs, and the like wasn’t the only secret I held in a vice grip, for I was also a young boy in the closet. I batted away conversations about girls and dating like the great Barry Bonds — a man who is not gay, but I’ve heard was an incredible baseball player. At the time, I didn’t register the connection between these two massive secrets. I have since, and we’ll get to that. All I knew was that WoW was my lifeblood. I would plug the cord in, and I may as well have been hooking up an IV drip. It consumed my days, my afternoons, and, well, my nights. My laptop often overheated to the point where I could sear a steak for dinner while I bested a new dungeon. Unfortunately, I never made such an attempt as I don’t like steak. A brave admission, I know. Never have. Shut-up about it. Many a school night, I would covertly stay up gaming until six in the morning, get one hour of something resembling sleep, and be jolted awake by my alarm at seven o’clock. Hard to say why my GPA wasn’t exactly exceptional those years. Another darker moment that jumps right out was a family trip to a log cabin compound in Colorado where, instead of roasting marshmallows with family as dusk turned, I took a solo journey with an extension cord to plug in on the deck outside the guest services shack as it was the only place with wi-fi. If I wasn’t playing the game, I was most certainly thinking about it — strategizing or counting the hours down until I would get my next fix. My birthday request was often to be left unbothered and unquestioned while I played to my heart’s content. The truth is, I never quite found that state of contentment. What I had found was a distraction — a world in which I wouldn’t have to engage in the complexities of navigating one’s sexuality. It was an escape from a reality I wasn’t ready to face. I had at least made a few friends in the game. “Faux friends,” as my mom would playfully call them. She was right on some level. They were often several years older than I, we’d never met in person, and they didn’t technically know a single thing about me. Was that so different, though, from my high school peers, with whom I actively avoided true connections for fear of being outed? Those people felt like faux friends just the same. I’ve danced a dance with this game for two decades. I’ve forced myself to cold-turkey quit time and time again, but she always comes a knockin’ — often at times when I’m feeling a bit lost, aimless, or overwhelmed. She almost got me again recently. Fortunately, I was able to wake myself up from the trance-like state of obsession before I got in too deep, my right hand clenched for eternity in a mouse-like claw formation. On the whole, this game has been an absolute demonic succubus that has torn my attention from the things and people I love. However, for a moment, it provided a young boy a reprieve from his own terrifying, racing thoughts, and for that, I will always be grateful. |
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