Being a nice person in video games
I’m a paradox. Or maybe I’m a hypocrite. I really don’t know. I have a lot of feelings about myself that I should probably get rid of. Feelings of self-loathing. I hate myself. But at the same time, all of you online people seem to think I’m a really nice guy*. I think I’ve only ever had a few people say they genuinely hate me, and even then it’s for really weird reasons, like “forcing your fake medic shit down our throats” and stuff like that. I bet if they had a gimmicky username, they’d abuse the hell out of it.
People think of me as nice. Some even ask how I put up with it all. Forum-wise, I’m a model student, my only infractions coming from an AMA thread being deleted for spam and a bad joke about piracy. In-game, I’m alright, but I vent my anger at myself and disconnect before too much damage has been done. Mostly though, I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.
That’s not to say that I don’t rage. I dooooo. I really do. I don’t start punching monitors or anything, although I really want to. But that’s what the disconnect button is for, to get out of bad situations. Except when there ISN’T a disconnect button, like in League of Legends (or Dota 2 for that matter). I’ll sit through a bad game, still trying my hardest to win, even if I’m having a bad game, for fear of being punished. MOBAs tend to have strict rules for leaving a game in progress, even in casual game modes like ARAM. So you’re forced to sit there for 20+ minutes, fighting to spend even more than 20 seconds alive and trying not to die. There’s no escape, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to roll over and let it happen.
You can’t disconnect from competitive TF2 matches either. But at least TF2 matches happen nice and quick. Even Highlander ones. If your team is getting stomped, the game WILL be over very quickly. Possibly within a couple of minutes if you’re playing 5CP or Payload or something. But there’s further incentive to not leave. I will NOT let my team down. I’ll get really angry and not want to speak to them (or anyone) for a few days, but eventually my anger subsides.
Thing is, my anger is rarely directed at other people. It’s almost always directed at myself. I am such a martyr at times. I also have a lot of self-loathing. But many a time I’ve lashed out at others when I shouldn’t, so it’s better to not so much direct it inwards, but shout at myself rather than shout at others.
This is why I LOVE games that I can just leave from. Casual games where it doesn’t really matter if I win. It’s not because I AM a casual person, it’s because I’m secretly really a competitive person. Everything’s a competition and I get upset not when I lose, but when I get my ass kicked. Being steamrolled is a really horrible thing for me. I know, I’m pathetic.
Doesn’t stop me from being a nice person though. I’d hate to be a bad person and frankly, you get such a nice feeling when you help someone.
