I read an interesting post on Wow Ladies about being ashamed to admit your gaming addiction to people that you know in real life: family, friends, co-workers. I think it’s something that we all do a bit of.
I’m quite open about gaming, and I’ll talk about Warcraft to most people. What I won’t do, however, is admit to non-gamers exactly how much time I spend gaming. I don’t know why it would be humilating to admit it, since quite a large part of the populace spends most non-working, non-sleeping hours in front of the TV. But still…to admit that I spend the equivalent of a second job playing WoW would embarrass me. (Yeah, I know that I’m posting this on a public blog, but no one here but us chickens, etc., etc.)
Or, as one comment so succinctly put it:
“You know… I’d rather sit at home on a computer than wake up next to some random guy and realise I have vomit on my hair from the previous night. And, holy hell, what’s that itching?”
lol…
A few weeks ago we were shopping in our local market, and ran into someone that we used to fence with; he was an assistant fencing master. (I’d started again in hopes that my torn-up knee could allow it, and quit in disappointment when I admitted that it wouldn’t.) We all said hi, and asked how he was doing. He was fine, but had stopped fencing himself due to too much computer time. Almost as an afterthough, he added “I play Warcraft” in a low voice, not expecting us to even know what he was talking about.
“Oh my god…you too?” The conversation was quite amusing, as the revelations of how involved we were gradually became more honest. Admitting that I had two level 70s, all the way to admitting that we took a week of holiday when TBC came out. He’d stopped fencing because of gaming, but still held his academic job. He freely admits, though, if he was in university he probably would have dropped out due to his desire to play.
My family knows that I play, as I tried to get my dad interested in playing at one point. They don’t, however, know how much I play, and they don’t know that sometimes we don’t answer the phone if we’re in the middle of a raid. They wouldn’t understand.
Such a strange thing, to so enjoy an activity that you are embarrassed to talk about. I talk about my other hobbies and my artwork and so on, but serious gaming is evidently not socially acceptable on some level.
We’re watching.
And waiting.
Soon we will release your secret gaming shame to the world! Unless, that is, you pay our ransom of one hundred million of your Earth dollars. MUhahaHAhahahaaaa!
Or corn, the guys say they’ll settle for a bag of corn. You know, whatever is easiest for you.
I kind of understandt. I don’t talk about gaming mainly because topic is completely non-interesting to my fellow non-gamers, but amount of time eaten by Warcraft is scary. 60+ days on my main… I am trying to cheer up myself by fact, that some of that time is actually afk time (I am serious afker) but still… /played function is definitely scariest thing in WoW. I am not admitting how much I play to anyone, who couldn’t symphatize:-)
You chickens…I have a grudge against you. Sure, you say that you’ll settle for a bag of Special Feed, but I personally did the /chicken emote about five thousand times in Westfall, only to have some little gnome nubcake run past and kill the bloody thing. You’re all dead, in my book.