Confession of a Gamer

J/k. Reality is for people who think having life is more productive than playing games.

Like Helen Keller is to handicaps, I am to games. You can't help but think of handicaps when you think of Helen Keller, can you? (Okay, that might sound a bit harsh to Helen, but that was the first thing that came to my mind)

I have been wondering as to whether I should post this since it would make me look like I have less life than I actually do. So yeah, if you are reading this, chances are either I already stop playing games. Or I just don't care about what you think of me. Probably the latter. Anyway.

Here is my confession.

I play games. I play games a lot. Be it MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online, where we gather and waste our lives altogether. Like World of Warcraft), FPS (First Person Shooter, where we all want to be soldiers, but no one wants to die in real life. Like Counter Strike), RTS (Real Time Strategy, where we decide who can multitask better. Like DotA), RPG (Role-playing Game, where we think fictional lives are better than our real lives. Like Final Fantasy).

To give you a rough idea about how much game I play a day, I once got a questionnaire asking the exact same question. “How many hours a day do you spend on gaming?” the choices were:

a) 0-1 hour,

b) 1-2 hours,

c) 2-4 hours,

d) 4-6 hours,

e) other____ [please specify]

I chose 'other'.

If you still have no idea about how much game I play a day, I once skipped an entire day's meal because I was playing DotA. Yeah, it's that chronic.

But hey, before you start pointing fingers at me, let me point out that I still get higher grades than most of my classmates. *cough cough* imbragging *cough cough*. Me playing games don't interfere with my education. Or at least that's what I like to believe.

Someone even once asked me, 'how does it feel to be a gamer?' It's simple, really. While you guys prefer to spend $10 on a drink while sitting on a dark noisy club room and having to shout to your friend who is just a foot away from you, I prefer sitting in front of my computer and playing games. That's how it feels to be a gamer.

First, let me get this out of the way. I think I speak for all the gamers in the world (okay maybe not. But you get my point) when I say I am jealous with other people who have social life. Don't get me wrong. I can socialize; and while my social skills are not the best, I'm pretty sure they are not the worst either. It's just that I find playing games is more fun than socializing with other people. I kid you not when I say I wish I could be more sociable*.

*just a random footnote, I also socialize with other people when I play games. It's not like I lock myself in my room and play games alone. I use Skype when I play dota with my friends, so to some extent, I still socialize. Although with the same group of friends over and over again.

Also, as much as I like games, I still want a girlfriend. One of my friends even told me that if a girl decides to like me, then she won't be worried about having to be jealous of other girls; she just has to be jealous of the games I play. When you text/bbm me and I don't reply quick enough, chances are either I don't like you very much or I'm currently playing games.

With that out of the way. I would like to share with you the benefits of playing games.

Thanks to video games (special mention to Final Fantasy), I speak English pretty well. Probably not as well as you Americans reading this. But close enough. I learned a lot of new words from games. Like maybe sheath, scabbard, ravage, concoction. And other random useless words that I will never ever use in real life.

Thanks to video games (special mention to DotA), I know how to react when other people flame me(for those of you who have no idea what flaming is, it basically is insulting someone electronically). How would you react when other people flame you in real life? I have like a million other comebacks that I can use if I get flamed, all of which I would probably never use since I would just slap the person anyway.

Thanks to video games (special mention also goes to DotA), I learned that you can be an utter asshole as long as you're good at something. This also applies in real life, apparently.

I know that I really should stop playing games (what with me being 20 years old), but it's hard for me. Games made me who I am today, and they make me who I will be tomorrow.