For the purposes of this article and in order to give it full reference I must first introduce myself. My name is Anthony and I currently work in a corporate job in NYC on a major pharmaceutical company. Now before you go asking for free trials of Viagara or medical MJ let me further explain.
My job consists of board meetings and presentations, long discussions over publication dates, print quantities in the thousands and budgets in the millions. Now don’t get too excited, I see barely a pittance of that.
What has fascinated me is that I live in two different worlds that never connect.
There is my 9-5 corporate life of working for the man and earning my rent. I have friends at work and in my industry and we relate on many different levels, movies, books, recent events, etc… However, most of these people do not know about my favorite hobby, video gaming. Those that do, give me a razzing for it. Basically I get the usual, “that’s kid stuff,” or “how can you spend 200 hours a week leveling a silly toon in World of Warcraft” or even the more serious question “why do they have to be so violent?”
The other world is my gaming life. A life spent virtually in a suit of plate armor or a set of battle fatigues. It is entertainment that is much more involving than a movie and much more fulfilling than a TV show, the games that challenge my dexterity and problem solving skills alike. They have no idea that my hobby allows me to be a soldier one day and a NFL player the next. And like many others, I have a group of friends that I tend to game with. I have Friends that I have known for years that are located around the country from South Dakota to San Diego. These guys are the ones that I go to battle both with and against. They are guarding my back against a tank in Battlefield 2 or healing my battle weary bones in World of Warcraft. I’ve realized that although the virtual friendships I’ve forged are different, they are no less powerful.
Recently one of our motley members of musketeers lost a family member that was very close to him. Although I have never personally met this friend of mine, I felt his loss as though it were my own. It is amazing to me that a man whose face is nothing more that a series of digital blips to me could become one of my dearest friends.
What brought this to life for me recently is that I have a very gregarious client. He likes to start our big 20 person weekly meetings by asking what we did for our weekend. Thus far I have avoided mentioning my gaming life for fear of getting the usual reactions. Would they really want to hear that I spent a large part of my weekend slashing Alliance Noobs apart and joining my friends rumbling around in some tanks as if they were golf carts? Well this next week, they will hear about it in all its gooey glory.
Regardless I have come to the understanding that although my corporate and gaming lives may be separate, I can enjoy both equally. ‘Cause when it comes down to it, my gaming life would so wtfpwn the boardroom like it was a noob frag fest.