My long midnight has ended. In the dark, all alone and with no one with me to check my six and be a loyal friend with a friendship hardened by the horrors of war. Yes, friends, my long midnight has ended. As of 1700 hours tonight I, [SOB]_Cougar, will once again, be granted the glorious and patiently awaited return to the honor and glory of a virtual battlefield. I have sacrifced much in my life for love and a better life and to do that I had to give up certain luxuries and priveleges, one of which being the internet. Now I'm getting it back. While it may seem meaningless and pointless to some, even absurd to a few, this is a major leap in to rejoining society and the gaming community and a very happy day for myself.
Almost a year ago I was stationed at a small Air Force base in Oklahoma. I had no one, no one to care for me or about me, I was alone. I sat in my room everynight and played BF1942, DC and BF2 with the loose assoication of online gamers who I called friends. But as the saying goes, be wary of those who you keep close, I did not choose my friends wisely. I choose for skill, for co-ordination, brutality, domination, those who I deemed worthy to play along side of me in the virtual field of battle. These people were not friends. These people were out to use the talents that I had developed from the hours upon hours of loneliness I had spent with myself and the game to benifit themselves and once that had been accomplished, I was once again alone.
Then one day I met a girl. Not just any girl, not the type I used and spent numerous one night stands that led to nothing and only a deeper sense of loneliness. This girl was special. The kind of special you only come across maybe once, if your lucky, in a lifetime. Someone who cared, someone who wasn't out to use me for a quick trip on the ecstacy express, rather someone who loved me for me. I fell in love too. I found happniess that I didn't know existed, both when she was there and even more so when she was not. My attention quickly turned from online wars and struggles for virtual glory and all the pettiness that comes along with it and turned solely to her. We were destined to be together.
After several months of comtmeplating my current situation, location, possible furture and state of mind, I made the desicion to leave the military and move to Dallas to spend the rest of my life with her. She was going to college to be a doctor and I already had training in computer technology from the military, what could go wrong? I signed my seperation papers on 4 Oct 2005 at 1632 hours, my truck already loaded with my stuff, map in hand, chip on my shoulder. I arrive in Dallas later that night and set up in her apartment and begin the search for a job. It didn't hit me until the next day....
Later the next day I sit down at my computer and start to get online to look for a job. Then it hits me. How could I have been so absent minded and stupid? There's no internet!! I had become so accustomed to having it at my fingertips that I didn't realise what I had until it was gone. Not only could I not search for a job I could not play BF, which had rapidly grown into an addiction, or as I used to call it, "an agressive hobby", lol.
Skip to December. Job search is going miserably, my checking and savings accounts are running dry, the relationship is getting rocky due to the recent circumstances and I crave social interaction like a man lost in the desert for a month. Not only do I have no friends whatsoever, I don't even have anyone to talk to anymore other than my girl. Nothing. I am becoming inceasingly desperate, hostile, depressed and overall irritable. Then it happened, the phone call I had been waiting for. A job.
Skip to present day. I have a very good job, better than the military by far. I have managed to set myself up in a VERY nice apartment in a good neighborhood and even managed to get some furniture, get a bank account, buy groceries instead of eating in a mess hall, by new clothes, suits, buisness clothes, a dog, a ring for the girl. Still no phone, no cable, no internet but that was soon to change. Today friends, I take my first and personally biggest leap back into the world after a long, miserable and depressing midnight in my life. I get the internet back. I get all of you back, all of you. The good the bad and the smacktards, all of you.
You see things much differently when you get it back after not having it for a while. Instead of sizing another online player up in the first few minutes of meeting them, I now want to get to know them. Instead of getting mad when my tank takes half damage after running over a pebble, I am just glad I get to take damage at all. Instead of getting in a shouting match with a 12 year old over a plane, I'm just glad I get to see something other than a bot fly off and crash into a tree.
In the past 6 months my life has virtually done a 180 degree turn. 90 degrees for worse and 90 degrees for better. I'm happier now than I've ever been in my entire life. Like I said, this may seem stupid, corny, insignificant, or meaningless to any of you but for me this is a very happy day indeed. I look forward to playing with any of you people in the very, very near future.
Plus I just miss knifing people in the face and then teabagging them and typing "lolololololololol" in the chat box.
Oh yeah, the girl and I are now engaged too, and the best part, she cooks and cleans while I play. Like I said at the begininng of my story, she's a keeper.
Almost a year ago I was stationed at a small Air Force base in Oklahoma. I had no one, no one to care for me or about me, I was alone. I sat in my room everynight and played BF1942, DC and BF2 with the loose assoication of online gamers who I called friends. But as the saying goes, be wary of those who you keep close, I did not choose my friends wisely. I choose for skill, for co-ordination, brutality, domination, those who I deemed worthy to play along side of me in the virtual field of battle. These people were not friends. These people were out to use the talents that I had developed from the hours upon hours of loneliness I had spent with myself and the game to benifit themselves and once that had been accomplished, I was once again alone.
Then one day I met a girl. Not just any girl, not the type I used and spent numerous one night stands that led to nothing and only a deeper sense of loneliness. This girl was special. The kind of special you only come across maybe once, if your lucky, in a lifetime. Someone who cared, someone who wasn't out to use me for a quick trip on the ecstacy express, rather someone who loved me for me. I fell in love too. I found happniess that I didn't know existed, both when she was there and even more so when she was not. My attention quickly turned from online wars and struggles for virtual glory and all the pettiness that comes along with it and turned solely to her. We were destined to be together.
After several months of comtmeplating my current situation, location, possible furture and state of mind, I made the desicion to leave the military and move to Dallas to spend the rest of my life with her. She was going to college to be a doctor and I already had training in computer technology from the military, what could go wrong? I signed my seperation papers on 4 Oct 2005 at 1632 hours, my truck already loaded with my stuff, map in hand, chip on my shoulder. I arrive in Dallas later that night and set up in her apartment and begin the search for a job. It didn't hit me until the next day....
Later the next day I sit down at my computer and start to get online to look for a job. Then it hits me. How could I have been so absent minded and stupid? There's no internet!! I had become so accustomed to having it at my fingertips that I didn't realise what I had until it was gone. Not only could I not search for a job I could not play BF, which had rapidly grown into an addiction, or as I used to call it, "an agressive hobby", lol.
Skip to December. Job search is going miserably, my checking and savings accounts are running dry, the relationship is getting rocky due to the recent circumstances and I crave social interaction like a man lost in the desert for a month. Not only do I have no friends whatsoever, I don't even have anyone to talk to anymore other than my girl. Nothing. I am becoming inceasingly desperate, hostile, depressed and overall irritable. Then it happened, the phone call I had been waiting for. A job.
Skip to present day. I have a very good job, better than the military by far. I have managed to set myself up in a VERY nice apartment in a good neighborhood and even managed to get some furniture, get a bank account, buy groceries instead of eating in a mess hall, by new clothes, suits, buisness clothes, a dog, a ring for the girl. Still no phone, no cable, no internet but that was soon to change. Today friends, I take my first and personally biggest leap back into the world after a long, miserable and depressing midnight in my life. I get the internet back. I get all of you back, all of you. The good the bad and the smacktards, all of you.
You see things much differently when you get it back after not having it for a while. Instead of sizing another online player up in the first few minutes of meeting them, I now want to get to know them. Instead of getting mad when my tank takes half damage after running over a pebble, I am just glad I get to take damage at all. Instead of getting in a shouting match with a 12 year old over a plane, I'm just glad I get to see something other than a bot fly off and crash into a tree.
In the past 6 months my life has virtually done a 180 degree turn. 90 degrees for worse and 90 degrees for better. I'm happier now than I've ever been in my entire life. Like I said, this may seem stupid, corny, insignificant, or meaningless to any of you but for me this is a very happy day indeed. I look forward to playing with any of you people in the very, very near future.
Plus I just miss knifing people in the face and then teabagging them and typing "lolololololololol" in the chat box.
Oh yeah, the girl and I are now engaged too, and the best part, she cooks and cleans while I play. Like I said at the begininng of my story, she's a keeper.