Goodbye Azeroth

For those not in the know, Azeroth is the fantasy world used by the game World of Warcraft (often called WoW). If you don't know what the game WoW is, be thankful. Anyways, I just quit playing WoW, for good. Which is something many WoW players say, many times. It's a game that easy to reminisce over and go back to, which I've seen happen more times than I can remember and am even guilty of doing myself.

Before I say anything else, let me just say that I know WoW is just a game and for a majority of the people that play, it remains so. They have no problem picking it up and putting it down whenever the call for either arises, which is good for them. Sadly, for me, it was not a game that was so easy for me to put down. I haven't the time nor the desire to go into the reasons why, so let's just leave it at that.

Before I ever played WoW, I knew I was likely to get addicted to it. An online role-playing game was right up my nerd ally. So for many years I avoided it like the plague. But then I met a girl, a cute one at that. And she wanted to play. And she wanted us to play together. And I had no way of saying no to her at the time. So began my obsession with this game I knew I should have avoided. 

She eventually quit on her own, not remaining entertained by the game. I however, was hooked. So in the past four years, I have sunk hundreds (probably over a thousand) of dollars into this game living an imaginary life in an imaginary world. A world I have used all too often to escape my life in the real world. 

I've known I've been using the game for escapism for awhile, but like anyone in denial, I've also been trying to convince myself it wasn't that bad; I could quit whenever I want, I just didn't want to. Or I'd quit after this or that happened. 

Anyways, recent events have shown me how bad it is. Not just the game, but a lot of shit in my life. However, WoW is definitely a part of it. It's also a part I can (somewhat) easily do something about. So I quit.

And when I say I quit, I don't just mean I cancelled my account and won't be able to play for awhile. Anyone that's played WoW for any lengthy amount of time can tell you all it takes is a few drinks and before you know it you're back playing again. Nor do I mean I cancelled my account and deleted the game from my computer. While more annoying, it's still easy to end up playing again this way. Instead, I've deleted every character on my account, which included multiple max level characters, in addition to canceling my account and deleting the files from my computer. People that have played the game (or nearly any other MMO) will understand the significance of deleting all max level characters (or all characters for that matter). 

It's not a guarantee I can never go back, but it is a huge deterrent. Hopefully, even should I try to start playing again, the hassle of creating a new character and leveling it (in any MMORPG) will serve as a reminder that they're not worth my time. While games such as those are perfectly fine for a lot of people, they're not for me. My time is meant for other things in life.

Not an Author and Barely a Writer

For starters, I have to make a distinction between writers and authors. Writers are people that write as a hobby, be it fiction or nonfiction. Authors are those who have had their writing published, and a significant amount of it in a widely distributed medium. Meaning if you've have a novel published and released nationally or multiple poems published in different poetry collections, I'd consider you an author. Having one or two poems in your high school newspaper or a letter to the editor published in a magazine leaves you as a writer.

Ever since I was little, I thought one of the greatest jobs a person could ever have would be as a successful author. For starters, you get to set your own work hours. Sure you might have some meetings you have to go to at hours you don't like, but for the most part, you're in charge of when you get to write. On top of that, if you're among the top tier of successful authors, you get to go on book signing tours, which I've always looked at as paid vacations. Best of all, unlike rock stars, athletes, and actors, you can remain relatively anonymous. Sure, the most diehard fans will find out what you look like (and possibly where you live), but most people are content to know the author's name and to be happy when they hear a new novel will be released by him or her. It really seems like a dream life. 

Of course I know, from interviews with various authors, that it's not all roses. Every occupation has it's downsides and it's no different for authors. Still, even with those downsides, it seems like it would be a pretty sweet deal, provided you're successful and can support yourself on your earnings from writing alone (which is a rare enough feat on its own).

I have often talked about one day being an author. In my head, there's grand stories that I'm sure would all be best sellers if I only got them on paper and sent to a publisher. But none of them ever gets on paper, at least not past a few thousand words. At that point I either lose interest in the story or begin to realize it's full of plot holes. Or I just let my tendency to be lazy take over and I leave the story behind so I can play video games instead. No matter the reason, the reality is I will never be an author with habits like that. (There's little consolation in the fact that even if I didn't have those habits, it's still a small chance I'd ever be published and even less chance I would make enough to support myself from it). 

Instead, I can say I'm a writer, but I feel like even that is misleading. I write the occasional poem and blog, with sporadic attempts at starting actual stories that never get finished. However, I definitely like to talk about writing as though it's something I do much more frequently, especially with new people I meet. I don't even know why, it's usually pretty apparent they're not that interested in hearing about it. Yet somehow I still get a thrill from talking about it. Maybe it's because I think they'll think I'm smarter than I really am somehow. 

Anyways, what got me thinking about all this is, ironically enough, I found the perfect book for me to write. Chances are I'll never write it, but it's hard for me to imagine a more qualified person to write this book. And that book is of course I guide to being in the Friend Zone.

Anyone that's known me for any significant amount of time knows I've spent more time in the Friend Zone than should be legal. Even people that don't know me that well but were reading my blog years ago know about most of the Girl X saga, which was enough for a book in itself (at least in my mind). But people that have known me longer know she was just one girl in what seems to be a reoccurring cycle.

Of course, if I were really up to taking writing seriously, there's a ton of things I'd like to write. For instance, a standard fantasy trilogy with a world and characters of my own creation would be fun. Of course the market is saturated with them right now, but seeing how well I could compete with those other authors would be part of the fun (look out George R.R. Martin!). Writing some sitcom scripts also sounds like fun, if only because I think incorporating the lives of my friends into a TV show sounds more entertaining than it would likely be. And not to be vulgar, but writing a porn script also sounds fun. Mainly cause I want to see if it's possible to have one turned into a movie that somehow has decent and somewhat realistic dialogue (unfortunately I'd have no control over the "acting," which seems to be a problem unto itself). And finally, if I were to write like it meant something to me, I'd love to write stories (novels mainly, but some short stories) that inspired people to live better lives. I'm not saying they'd get everyone to start recycling (though that'd be cool), but instead to reevaluate who they are, who they want to be, and to find ways towards reconciling the two. 

Anyways, that's all "what if." For now, I'll scratch the itch to write with bad poetry and pointless blogs; which I'll only write between sessions of playing video games.

Love at First Sight is NOT Romantic

Recently a friend and I got into a discussion about romance and one of the issues discussed was "love at first sight." My friend believes both that there is such a thing and that the idea of it is romantic. I disagree with her on both counts. But being the nature of our conversation (texting), it was hard to articulate why. However, I let her know I would write a note about it and she could read it then, so here it is. 

I'm not going to argue that people can meet and have immediate strong feelings for each other; this has been shown to be true many times. But I wouldn't call those feelings love. For starters, love is something much greater than those initial feelings. (I'm not going to try and explain what I believe love is at the moment, let's just leave it that it's the most powerful of human emotions in regards to one another). Love takes time, and plenty of it, to form. Of course those initial strong feelings can lead to love, but being a guy that's spent more time in the friend zone than should be possible, I can say that is rarely the case. More often than not, like at least nine times out of ten, when a female friend has told me she finally met "the one" and it's a guy she just met, the relationship ends. Usually that end takes anywhere between six months to two years, but that's not a fixed rule. And it also usually ends badly. 

I know there's a lot of people that say when they met, it was love at first sight. I would argue that it was either a case of strong feelings at first sight that turned to love (and lucky them for being one of those rare couples to achieve such a thing) or it's rosy retrospection. Because of their current feelings for their partner, they look at everything in the past in a better light than it really was. So what may have been a normal meeting between two people, when they look back upon it they seem to remember it as a love at first sight instance. It's a human thing to do and nearly everyone alive is guilty of it. 

But even if there is such a thing as love at first sight, I'd still argue it is not romantic. In fact it's about as unromantic as can be. 

Falling in love with someone when you first meet implies that something else is at work in the relationship, such as fate/destiny or God or whatever you want to call it. That means you have no choice in loving this person, nor they in loving you. Essentially, it's an arranged relationship, but instead of your parents being in control, it's the Cosmos or whatever. Admittedly, the definition of what is romantic can be arbitrary. It's possible some people think the stars lining up and choosing your life for you is in some way romantic. But not me.

Romance is loving someone because you choose to. It's looking past the bad and focusing on the good in them. It's growing with someone, both emotionally and physically. It's waking up and rededicating yourself to them everyday and doing so because you want to. It's seeing your girlfriend/wife when she's been sick and in bed for days, yet still telling her she's beautiful and not because that's what she wants to hear, but because you truly believe it. Or having faith in your boyfriend/husband even when he's down on his luck and it really seems like the world is against him. It's growing old with someone and still sitting next to them and holding hands whenever possible. It's being old together and being able to look back on everything and saying without a doubt you'd do it all again.

I'm not saying none of this is possible with love at first sight. However, it's a lot more romantic if the person I'm with is there because they chose to be. (Of course, I also like to believe that the best lovers are best friends, so my idea of what romance is may be way off). 

Anyways, I'm close to rambling and repeating myself over and over. And while this still isn't as well thought out as I'd like it to be, it'll work as a starting point.