Dear (_____)

Dear online gamer,

If I said I would be right back or if I told you a time around which I might be joining the online community, do not call me twenty times when I'm late getting there.  Do not text me twenty messages full of curse words.  Do not send me emails asking me where I am.  The rules of meeting courtesies and respect don't apply to online video game recreation.  Nothing in life is screwed up by anything that does or does not happen there.  Literally nothing.  If someone leaves a chat room without saying goodbye, do you go to their house and ring their doorbell fifty times?  Find something else to do while you wait, or don't wait at all.  It's a big world out there, kiddo.

It is a game.  It is a fictional world.  The real world takes precedent at all times.  What do you not understand about that?  This fictional world is populated with literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people.  Find one to play with.  Sometimes plans change.  Badgering and harassing people is the wrong way to get in touch with anyone.  No one, the fifteenth time their phone rings, thinks "oh terrific, I can't wait to talk to this person who has no concept of friendly boundaries and is losing their mind; they are going to be level headed and rational when I press 'answer'."  How flat out of touch are you?

Get over yourself.  Better yet, get into yourself.  Don't be so dependent on other people to complete your gaming happiness.  Or don't.  Keep ringing people thirty times and leaving voice mails that say "hey, call me back"  and strings of indignant texts.  I'm sure it'll work out great for you some day, right?



Rationally yours,

another online gamer