Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 2:12 am Post subject: i play world of warcraft
... is among the things i feel is a bad idea to admit in social situations. But lately i've been thinking that might be counter productive... because it means i'm ashamed of my interests. Maybe not being proud of something I like is more socially damaging than just telling people.
Anyone feel like you no way to keep up a conversation with people just because theres so little about you other people might find interesting.
It certainly is true that when I play videogames, I feel worse.
_________________ Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar.
Joined: Nov 05, 2007 Posts: 72 Location: SoCal, USA
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:45 am Post subject:
There's always something interesting about someone. You just need to be more willing to talk about yourself. If you really think about it, it's impossible to truly run out of things to talk about.
Don't be ashamed about playing WOW. Lots of "normal" people love the shit out of that game, you need to go and find them.
Sacrament wrote:
It certainly is true that when I play videogames, I feel worse.
Playing games is fine as long as you don't let them take over your life. Why do they make you feel worse?
_________________ "people become obsessed with the few traits they dont like about themselves and often neglect all the the things that make them amazing people." -zeroday
I'm also playing WoW. And honestly I was feeling kind of bad about playing that game until I met some "normal" people as silentbutdeadly said. And one of them being a really pretty girl, made me realize it is OK. If you're having fun while playing WoW then you should do it but don't be nolifer n00b
Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Posts: 1506 Location: Manchester UK
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:32 am Post subject:
I tried it, wasn't for me, I do play Lord of the rings Online which is great fun but am not sociable on there lol
I think with games it has like everything else, do in moderation, makes you go gaga if you do it 24/7 like I practically used to when housebound with anxiety
Joined: Mar 24, 2008 Posts: 263 Location: Mandal, Norway
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:40 am Post subject:
MMORPGs are extremely dangerous, and WILL make your SA worse if you are addicted. Check to see if you can stay away for a week without feeling the urge to log on... If you can't, I strongly encourage you to cancel your subscription/give your account away to some chinese farmer, break your CDs in half and delete it from your hard drive!
Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 157 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:16 am Post subject: latent addiction
Since my youth through uni and until very recently, I have compulsively played games...high school was solotairy...Civilisation mostly, then through Uni, social gaming...Warcraft 2, Starcraft....and then last year, War3.
It was actually social for me, because I was playing LAN games with good friends. But, I went and lived overseas for several years, and while I was away, I rarely played computer games, certainly not nearly as much as I had.
What happened is that there was a large vacuum created in my life, without the time and reality filler. During that time, some of that freed time was wasted with self pity, but some wasn't. Some of that time I used to research SP, read books and rediscover my creative side etc.
Since returning to NZ from Taiwan, I have hooked back up with old friends who have quite balanced lives...but have gaming in the mix. I have to go cold turkey, go totally without, there is no middle ground for me.
The way I see it is that my social phobia won't be forever. Eventually I will get past much of it. Then, what will I want to do with my time? Sit around in a stuffy room with a few mates playing networked games or playing in a band, having interesting conversations and traveling the world? The latter. If I am freed from my social phobia, I can think of many much more interesting things to do...other examples, learning to surf, becoming a cook of exotic foods, writing a book, exploring Latin America etc etc.
So, if there is alot of time that I can't socialise, I try and improve myself in some way. Films and books are the main route to this...to improve my general knowledge, so that someday I can have interesting conversation. I used to know all the statistics about Starcraft...hit points of units, damage types and cooldowns etc. In the time it took to learn that, I could have learn all the countries of Africa. All the time I sunk in W3, I could have learnt the guitar by now.
Ask yourself if you were free from SP, what would you want to be? Start becoming that person now I say. Would you be fascinated by someone you met that knew WoW really well? Would that be an interesting conversation or one that you would want to have? I know I wouldn't. When I overhear people talking about computer games, I cringe. They aren't people I want to know, even though I have sunk so many years of my life into it. I can say that I couldn't do the social things I wanted to, but I could have improved myself in some way. When I learn something new, even if I feel lonely, I dont feel depressed afterwards, with gaming, I feel lonely and depressed afterward, its just life being sucked out of me. When I used to finish a game of w3 with my mates last year, and it would have the "time lapsed", I felt really sad because that was time from my life that was gone forever, and I hadn't really enjoyed it.
It certainly is true that when I play videogames, I feel worse.
Playing games is fine as long as you don't let them take over your life. Why do they make you feel worse?
It's not like I play all the time or choose videogames over other activities or anything. Far from it, really. I just feel like I should be doing more productive things than playing videogames.
_________________ Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar.
There's a fine line between addicted and using games as an escape mechanism, but the line is still there. I know I've spent far too many hours with games, but to be fair I've never had trouble leaving it if I find motivation to do so. There's both pros and cons to it, especially regarding online games. During my time in World of Warcraft I found several friends that I still keep in touch with after I left it, and that made it worth it for me.
And as for taking things in moderation, that's a good advice. But it's also wise to keep in mind that what seems to be too much for one person doesn't have to translate into the same for another, it's usually yourself that has to decide when you should stop, at least to a certain point (which is rather extreme).
Have to mention that I'm fairly ashamed of mentioning it as well, especially before I got my dog as it was pretty much the only noteworthy thing I'd do. It's odd though, but at the same time as I now have something I can be proud of mentioning when someone asks "what I do these days", I also have far less trouble also adding that "I play *insert game* quite a bit as well".
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