BruceWayne

Hey everyone. Figured I'd introduce myself. I've been a gamer since about the age of 7 or 8. I've mostly been into sports games but also have played a lot of FPS games and others. Gaming for me has been the main thing I look forward to for most of my life. But, it really got bad when I started college. That's when I started to use it to escape the most. I'd stay in my dorm room and game most of my days if I wasn't out partying with friends. I'd also stay up late and skip class a lot. My first year of college went very poorly because of this. Ended up getting put on academic probation and everything. Needless to say, the parents were not happy about it. After that I cleaned up my act a bit. Got better grades. I started living at home instead of on campus (which was only 20 miles away) and my grades improved. Was still gaming but not as much. Ended up graduating college with not the worst grades but definitely not the best. Now here I am with no long-term career while working part time at a local warehouse store. I'm 25 and I don't really care for where my life is heading. I've also never had a girlfriend and it took me until the age of 24 to lose my virginity. Two things I'm not particularly proud of. Right now I'm in the midst of playing FIFA Ultimate Team which if you don't know is a virtual trading card game where you build a team with players you get from packs. It's very addicting. It also has cost me a lot of money. I've spent probably $200 in the past month on this game trying to get better players. There's also a whole other part of the game where you can sell your players to make coins to buy other players. I find myself putting off life to play this game and other games like it. I'll decide to not go out with friends because of it sometimes or do actual productive things like working out or playing my guitar. My day pretty much revolves around it. I wake up, drink coffee, play a match or two, go to work, come home and play again. Rinse, repeat. Bottom line is, video games have made me become desensitized to the real world and have become a form of escapism. I think having the option of video games has made me make a lot of poor choices throughout my life and this is something that needs to change. It's going to be tough for me, I can already tell. Giving up my video game console and games would be very hard but right now all I can think about is my happiness and how satisfied I am with life and It's becoming clear to me that I am not either of those. Video games have become such a large part of my life that completely stopping them sounds scary. I'm looking at my consoles right now and imagining nothing in their place makes me anxious.