When I was young, I LIVED for video games. I was obsessed with them. One of my oldest memories, in fact, was standing in a shopping cart because I was too short to reach the controller for a SNES demo at Wal*Mart or something. My father was very rough on us, psychological and emotional abuse especially and he absolutely hated my love for video games. If I was playing one and I heard the garage door open, I’d get that “tensed up” feeling from knowing he came home. Not all bad, and he did a lot for us, but he was one of those “perfect people” who is very normal, very hard working, and very social. Everyone loves him, and I was a little more awkward and introspective. He would always say things like “why can’t you be like Tony?” meaning my preppy, athelete, cousin. Or something like “look at the Hanson’s, they do x-y-z.” Anyways, long story short it did eventually get to me that I wasn’t Johnny Highschool like he wanted so my freshmen year of high school, I bought a bunch of Abercrombie clothes, started talking to new people, joined a bunch of activites and sports, and had kind of a social transformation and kind of left video games behind since then. I really enjoyed my new life, but I also found it very difficult to keep up, and I had several friends betray me (many people are like that as a teen period, even more so with “preps”), and my dad always liked to remind me that it’s my fault, and it’s cause there’s something wrong with ME and I just don’t know how to deal with people. Anyways, one of the things I liked about these new groups was the drugs and drinking that was popular at parties, but I gravitated far more to the drugs to self-medicate, using more and more than normal people, and eventually getting a bad drug addiction, including heroin, that lasted many years, wound me in jail and probation (which luckily I completed and have no felonies on my record).
Anyways, I haven’t owned a system since X-Box the first, as I got busy with my new found social life and girlfriends (also a few who did me pretty bogus, as no one will be surprised on this forum) in high school, but I did retain an interest in computers and the internet at least, and Gamergate has definitely inspired me to spend a lot of trips down memory lane watching Chrono Trigger and Earthbound “lets plays,” and has also rekindled my interest in being a gamer. I’m a college graduate (just tech) but have mostly just worked in the service industry so I don’t have any savings yet, but I just got a job in a restaurant near where I live, and I’m very excited to get back into gaming. Think how much it’s changed since I left played Halo 1, it will be very rewarding. My dad means well and me and him have been going to counseling together working through what’s called a “trauma narrative” and our relationship has been improving, so I’m optimistic about that, but I gotta say I wish he would’ve just accepted me for who I was. It wouldn’t have been so bad having a son who’s a nerd, right? After all, seeing that gaming is a multi BILLION dollar industry, to the point where there are even SCHOLARSHIPS for gaming now, it turned out not to be the waste of time he thought it to be.
Anyways yeah, now I’ve kinda gone full circle, and I’m looking forward to exploring the incredible depth and beauty of my own little inner world, immersing myself in a game, maybe even a new RPG would be cool, since my last was FF8! But yeah, Gamergate has definitely made me feel that being a gamer is something important and something to be proud of, and I used to learn SO MUCH from playing video games. So I know the learning curve will be steep and that’s one of the things that has kept me away this long. Not saying I’ll be a shut in, but gamergate has definitely made me feel more content about being an introvert:-)
VeritasIntueri 4 years, 9 months ago.
