I'm Scared to Play Video Games

There it is again.

That annoying little tick, that push, that piece of me that wants to dive back in. It’s been there for a long time, ever since I first beat the living shit out of Mario, Link, and Kirby. Ever since I carefully popped a CD out of it’s case and gently placed it on the round knob inside the my little PlayStation 1. Ever since I embodied that little yellow bastard and his mini green friend — Freddie Fish, finding that stolen conch shell. Hours on end, over and over again I searched for it, I found it, I searched for it again. Always a different ending, different questions, new results.

Ever since I shot spider webs from my wrists, swinging from building to building, high over the New York skyline, referencing the online guides for hidden tokens, trying to collect ‘em all, just like those damn Pokémon, just like those damn Xbox achievements. Accruing digital points on a digital screen, filling worlds, living worlds, being in the world, being digitized beyond belief. Ever since I spent every afternoon after school sitting crisscross-applesauce in front of a tube television, racing cars around tracks, dodging cows on Moo-Moo Farm, skirting around the bends of Rainbow Road. Third place, fifth place, fourth — blue-shell and now I’m in first. Bananas and shells and glowing cubes that shatter and give me new abilities to rub in my friend’s faces. Ammo to make Donkey-Kong flip his monkey-ass over so I can ride on by.

There it is again.

The roleplaying ones, the shooting ones, the ones that made me feel the hero, the ones that let me make my own way in my own world. Like reading a book, but I’m the main character, the star of the sit-com, choosing, casting, slicing, building, questing — whatever my heart desired, whatever the game allowed. I’m the center and I’m outside time, beating brutes and flirting with Cortana, I’m Master Chief, baby. Golden visor, high jumps and sticky grenades, Elites are no match for me. Hours on end, in online lobbies screaming through the mic, telling the next-door neighbor across the world what I’d do to his mother. The jokes, the laughs, cackles, and cries, over and over, every night, every day after school, all day, six hours, seven, on Sunday even more. There it is again.

Like crack-cocaine, like an opioid addiction preying on my brain, like this itch that never seems to go away, there it is again. It doesn’t look the same, no. Not the same as the sores you see from meth-fiends, not the same as convulsing withdrawals, not the same as cold sweats, fever-chills, not the same, never the same. Video games have a different way of invading the space between my ears, finding their set of molecules to rub against one another. Rub and rub, friction in the hypothalamus, the best kind. The only kind, the perfect kind. Buckets of that good-boy chemical, that sweet dopamine kick, that juicy jolt when pretty colors glimmer across my screen and I see I got the best-in-slot sword for my World of Warcraft character. The best, because I’m the best, I’m the good boy. I click the mouse buttons at the right times, when I’m supposed to and I do the right things when prompted. And now my back is C shaped, my ass is flat, my eyes are blurry, but I’m such a good boy. I feel it, that flood, that chemical romance.

Like characters making love on the surface of my prefrontal cortex, skin showing, golden and glistening, sweaty and passionate. Making love — I’m making love, making love to my hobby, the one-and-only, the thing I was made to do, to sit here, and click and watch, and get pretty colors and be a good boy. I’m not making love, I’m fucking, rubbing, friction, every day, every hour, as many times as possible. When I’m not, I’m sure thinking about it. Imagining it, conceiving it in my mind, behind my eyelids, the next click, the next path, the next sword-slash, fist-punch, or block-placement. Minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months on end, years and years fucking. I’m sex-addicted, doped up, watching the porn. Mainlining it straight into my League-of-Legend veins, clicking a thousand times a minute, top lane, middle, and bottom, dying, respawning, dying, dying, screaming, desk-pounding, trolling the shitters who ruin my game. I’m passionate, see? They said I could be anything so I chose to sit and watch and click like a good boy. Click and click and click and bend and slouch and flatten that ass and ruin those eyes and click.

There it is again.

They said I could be anything. So I professionally consume, days on end. I know the best farming routes, the best quest routines, the best stories to follow. I’m gaining weight, sitting, watching, consuming — and I love it. I’m in love with it. Better than life, better than what’s beyond the front door, better than work, better than talking to real faces, I just want to see the up-close pixels of Nordic faces in Skyrim, play the sneak-thief, shoot the arrows, stab the backs. That’s what I want, straight into my fat, greasy veins, flooded with Livewire Mountain Dew and Sour Patch Kids, and now my tongue is starting to hurt. Now my C-shaped spine is starting to give and my eyes can’t see the classroom chalkboard.

Now I’m 26 and feeding my good little boy. Intersecting drugs, sitting and watching. Clicking. Days and days on end, working a dead-end job that gives me just enough justification for eight hours a day, that the other 10 can be spent feeding my good little boy. And I don’t feel guilty. Because I work for eight hours out of the full 24, and go to sleep with visions of sugar-plums dancing in my head. Revelations of the next day’s achievement points, loot drops, and super-smash wins. No guilt, not one blip, because I work all day, and all day is eight hours, and the other 10? Those don’t count, that’s me time, that’s good boy time, hobby time, unwind time. Keep saying it.

Now I’m 26 and there’s this thing. This little gnawing thing that’s wormed it’s way up. This shred of self-loathing that’s growing into more. From a cloth-swatch to a shirt, some pants, now a jumpsuit. An outfit, a clown-fit, complete with a little red-button nose. My two feet stuck in red-clown shoes, cemented to the ground, guerilla glued. A shred that was only ever a shred, a little piece, gnawing all the while. Standing on my shoulder, pulling at my earlobe, reminding me of what sits beyond. No, this is good boy time, stop telling me about what might happen if I turned these pixels off.

I’ve seen in the mirror, and I look like shit in a clown outfit. My back is broken, my eyes burnt, my social skills rot. I think about my pixels when they aren’t in front of me. My time among others — family, friends, dates, nature — its all lost its charm, I can’t be there. I can’t be present, never in the moment, I’m too busy wishing for more mainline. More good boy points, more chemical romance. More consumption, get me fat, get me ripe, make my blood turn bright green from all the processed sugar, the sitting, the watching. The clicking.

So I’m 26 and I looked in the mirror and I hated what was looking back. That stupid fucking nose. Those ridiculous shoes, that blaring jumpsuit. Behind the facade, the addiction, the shame, there was someone real. I didn’t know him all that well, I’ve not spent much time with him. I’ve flicked him off my shoulder, ran from him, forgotten about him, told myself there would be a perfect time someday when I would sit and speak with him. Every time, I’d escape from him, fill my mind with pixels. Shiny distractions, glowing chests, Big-Fucking-Guns, blood and gore. Pixels and clicking and C shaped spines and blurry eyes. That was so easy.

I hated what was looking back. For once, I wanted to get to know this 26 year old pile of rotting flesh staring back through caked-up clown paint. Maybe he was boring, maybe he would convulse when deprived of pixel-injections. Maybe he would curse and hate. Maybe we would rather kill himself, blast his brainy cerebrum out all over the black computer screen. Maybe he would crumble under the weight of what sat outside the front door. Maybe he couldn’t take it, couldn’t handle it. Then again, maybe he could. The convulsing, the dead-ends, the blurry eyes and broken back, the same days over and over — I know where that leads. My name’s Christian and I am my addiction. I know where that leads.

More clown paint, more disintegration, more rotting flesh. More clicking. My power lies in my ability to choose, and this one made itself for me. One path leading to a life of endless torment, a life of never looking in the mirror. The other leading somewhere else. Somewhere else. The odds of torment will never be in my favor, but somewhere else? That had a nice ring to it. So I stopped clicking. Not afraid of failing, not afraid opening the front door, never afraid of looking in the mirror — terrified of who I am if I don’t.

But there it is again.

The nagging addiction comes crawling back. Squeeze a little more good boy juice on it, light the fire, if only a little. It comes crawling back, begging, this time with bigger treasures to show. And I’m scared. Scared to dip my toes in the pond. Hilariously scared to have a rip off the old habit, a quick fornication with that sexy, sinister grab. I’m scared to test it, see how much control I’ve gained. What if it’s not enough, what if I’m not strong-willed enough to exercise balance? What if I fall and never stop? Falling, tripping, reopening closed wounds, relapsing into wretched routines of nothing but clicking. Clicking. Clicking. There it is again.