This is Not Love

I don't like video games, but I'll play them for you.

       It was all he ever talked about. Well that, and his job at Pinheads. He was so passionate about it though that I didn't mind. He would always ramble on and on about how this character just got a new story arc or that character got "nerfed" in the last update. I always had to ask him what he meant by "nerfed" and other words like that, and at first, I think he enjoyed teaching me. Video games weren't really my thing, but League of Legends was his thing, so I tried to at least learn as much as I could about the game for him. It had 143 different characters, and each character had its own set of skills and powers that make them useful.

       There were many categories of characters and each category served different purposes in gameplay, but the most interesting part of the game for me was how each character has its own backstory. The first one he told me about was a couple that had their hometown destroyed. The guy was a funny, laidback support character, and the girl was a sarcastic, savvy assassin and they fought side by side to avenge their home. He would sometimes compare us to them, and I thought it was the cutest thing. They are much less cute to me now.

       Eventually, he wanted me to play with him, not just listen to him talk. I prefaced that I was horrible at every video game I had ever played, but since he loved the game so much, I would try it. He would probably have to tell me what to do throughout the entire game, though. It started off ok; we didn't play with other people, just ran practice games so I could learn the controls. However, once we joined a real game, things got messy. My problem with video games is that I'm not good at them, so I can't satisfy my inner perfectionist, and I get stressed and frustrated. Add the fact that League is a multiplayer game with chat enabled, and I was a crumbling disaster. When the onslaught of insults began, he defended me, saying it was my first time and he was teaching me. As the games stretched on though, he wouldn't even acknowledge he was playing with me. I quit playing League after that.