Gamers Addiction Bad Stuff

I received a trial membership to Everquest Online Adventures for the playstation 2 after purchasing one of the Madden football games.

I played Madden for a few months and never even looked at the EQ game. Until one day my wife said, let’s pop it in and see how it is.

To tell you the truth, my marriage was doomed from the start, but adding that game to the mix just put the nail in the coffin.

At first my wife and I played and learned the game together. We had just had a baby and money was always tight, so we just thought of playing this game as our entertainment.

We started out taking turns playing. Then we got another TV and another Playstation. She was much more into the game than I was, so I bought a new EQ game disc, created a new account and started over with a new character.

Honestly, I never really took the game seriously. I mean I talked to people and grouped with people, but never bothered to learn the strategies and cheats and deeper points to the game. The reason being, it was just a game to me. To my wife however, it became a competition. She had to get to level 60 before anyone…she had to level a third character to 50 before anyone…she had to do this and that.

For a majority of our gaming life, we followed each other. We always joined a guild together, and left together. If something happened one had the other’s virtual back.

Then it happened…I didn’t like the way certain people were acting in the guild. Racial slurs and crap like that. So after an argument with someone I was booted from the guild. She decided to stay. While not the biggest deal in the world, it led to her taking the game more seriously than our relationship. At one point she was playing the game 16 sometimes 20 hours a day. Obviously we started having troubles but she wouldn’t talk to me. Instead she started talking to some guy in the game. It got to the point that they developed a virtual relationship. That virtual relationship then turned into a real one and she met the guy and cheated. I found out and she said she was thinking about leaving me for him.

For a little over a month she continued her relationship with him right in front of me. I fought to keep her…to make her realize it would be a mistake. At one point he asked her to stay with him for a weekend. Despite my efforts throughout that month, I told her if she did, she could expect me to be gone and divorce papers to be waiting for her.

Long story short…she chose me over the online guy. Eventually we both realized our marriage was crap and divorced. (FYI…it was not a bitter divorce. We agreed on everything and we are able to deal with each other better now than when we were together.)

In hindsight I sometimes wish she would have left me for the online guy. He was a bit of a loon from some of the stories she wound up telling me later.

There are a lot of things out there that to get addicted to and that can destroy a life which the world knows about. Drugs, alcohol, porn…video games seem harmless. But we’re not talking about PacMan, We’re talking about a neverending story in which you never truly die and you never have to start from scratch. You HAVE to get more stuff…you HAVE to get stronger…you have to LEVEL LEVEL LEVEL!!!

I’m sure there are couples out there that can control this. But like I said early on…our marriage was doomed from the start. This episode of our life just took us down a road of extreme discomfort that made us resent the other in the long run.

All is well now in life. I started playing World of Warcraft later. But I refuse to group with people or join a guild. I don’t want a game to be the core of my social life. I eventually got bored with WoW. Paying $16 a month and playing maybe 5 hours a month didn’t make much sense. So I tried Guild Wars. I don’t think I’ve even logged on in a week.

I’ve been busy IRL. ;-)