THE  BACK STORY

With my face planted in the smell of old socks, my couch became my best friend for this entire week of absolute boredom. As I laid face-down, sprawled out on that old couch suffering from a volunteered video game withdrawal, I thought to myself “What the heck was I thinking?”

Well, it seemed like a fantastic idea to get a feel for other ways to entertain myself on a normal week, without my passion and hobby of playing video games. I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, and I wondered if I could find something more enjoyable without mashing buttons staring at a screen.

I decided to go a week without playing video games in hopes I’d find something just as  enjoyable, so I’d discover more about myself. On October 7th, as soon as I was ready to leave for school, that’d be the last time I’d touch a video game until a week has gone past.

AND THEN

In the morning, I logged into my account for the various games and sent a broadcast to my friends saying I’d be absent for a week. The night before, I had created a list of things I found to be of interest–writing, drawing, blasting music were the main things and I thought to myself okay, its not that bad. To avoid the nuisance of having people contact me on Skype about gaming, I quickly loged myself out of my account and with the soft hum of my laptop shutting down, I finally went to school.

But, every time I’d return home from school I felt an overwhelming urge to log on to my account and start playing my games. By the second day. I felt like I was going through some kind of substance withdrawal. I kept tightly gripping objects around me, or constantly ran my fingers through my hair and play with it. My fingers just twitched, desiring to play a game.

My mom contacted me over the weekend asking me if I wanted to go camping. Now, I hate camping with a burning passion, but I thought it wouldn’t be bad since I know I wouldn’t be able to game anyway. Again I was wrong, and this camping experience was worse. It felt as if I was being devoured by mosquitoes and the only fun part about being outside in the woods was making s’mores at night.

By the time I got home, I pulled up Facebook and felt like crying when the first post I read was from a gaming organizing talking about a beta for a new game that I had access to. Glancing at my video game icons, my burning desire to log in and start playing was overwhelming. But, I willed myself to withdraw from gaming once more.

I tried writing some random blogs and posts, but eventually it got to a point where I just thought of my game and couldn’t keep my head straight. Drawing didn’t help either. In fact, I was so frustrated from being bored that I kept ruining my concentration on the artwork by the sound of snapping pencils as my agitated hands gripped things too hard.

So, I found out that without video games I’m utterly bored out of mind despite of having other interests. I find gaming to be one of my greatest passions. Without it I skulk, feel sullen and just overall lose energy.

THE VERDICT

If there’s one thing I learned, it’s I now know for sure that gaming is one of my passions that I’ve grown so attached to that I’ll need it every day. Is that a healthy relationship? Probably not, but if having games keeps me happy, then I’m going to keep playing those games.

by KALEEN SINGH