Arguing With Myself

Sir Lancelot: [Sir Galahad the Chaste is being seduced by an entire castle full of young women] We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril.
Sir Galahad: I don't think I was.
Sir Lancelot: Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril.
Sir Galahad: Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
Sir Lancelot: No, it's too perilous.
Sir Galahad: Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.
Sir Lancelot: No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on.
Sir Galahad: Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?
Sir Lancelot: No. It's unhealthy.
Sir Galahad: I bet you're gay.
Sir Lancelot: Am not.
--From Monty Python and the Holy Grail*



I don't smoke.

I used to occasionally light up a cigar (on the average of once or twice a year), but I gave that up years ago.

The tipping point for me was noticing a change in how I really REALLY wanted to smoke another one within a day of the last one. If you ever smoked a cigar, that last half of the cigar has that harsh blech taste that typically acts as a damper on lighting up another one, and when I caught myself holding a pen like it was a stogie, puffing away, I realized I was very close to a tipping point.

It's been over a decade since I experienced that sort of craving. Sure, there's that feeling of euphoria when you walk into the dealer hall at GenCon and see all of the game vendors waiting to take your money, but that wears off fairly quickly when you immerse yourself in the crowd.**

This past month, however, I've been dealing with WoW withdrawal, which until I actually unsubbed I would have laughed off.

I've been at work, sitting through meetings, when I've had the urge to go run Alterac Valley. And when I mean urge, it's not a "oh yeah, it'd be cool to do XXX," but more like "I NEED TO DO THIS NAOW!!!!"

I've been cooking and cleaning around the house when I really really wanted to stop and go sneak into Eversong Forest on my NE Rogue and watch the new toons out and about.

I've been tired and ready for bed and I've thought "Hey, what about changing my rotation a bit," and gone halfway down the stairs before I realized what I was thinking.

I've found my fingers twitching, mimicking my rotation, at odd moments of the day.

I've had a conversation with myself, eerily mimicking the Monty Python moment above:

"You know, it's not a big deal. You can resub."
"No, I've got good reasons for not doing it. I like having less drama in my life."
"Yeah, but I do miss playing Alterac Valley."
"There are other MMOs that have PvP, so cut it out."
"But it took you how long to get good at WoW's BGs? You'd have to start over with more drama. Why not stick with what you know?"
"Did you not get the 'less drama' part? I was sniping at the kids that past few months before I quit."
"That's on you, not the game. Come on, man up and resub."
"No, and that's final."

***

If you'd have told me that I'd have experienced this when I unsubbed, I'd have thought you were crazy. I take WoW breaks of a week or three all the time, so I figured this would be easy once I actually pulled the trigger. But the thing is, that's a false analogy; even if I took a break from the game, the game was still there, ready for me to play. Now, having actually cut the cord, I don't have that security blanket.

I'm hopeful that this, like the cigar thing, will fade with time. There's plenty of other games out there, and I'm sure that I'll find them interesting once I, you know, actually start playing them.





*Courtesy of IMDB.com. I have it in a book somewhere in the basement, but I didn't want to spend over 1/2 hour looking for it.

**And you also look at the prices and realize there's no way you can afford to buy ALL THE GAMES.


EtA: Added reference to IMDB.com.