Moving Forward

When I switched into the Guild I'm in now, one of the people who impressed me the most was a person I assumed was a woman because they were playing a girl character. This person was very smart and funny, savvy with the game, and quite ambitious about winning. I thought all of this was neat and because I assumed it was a girl behind the toon, I trusted this person.

One should never make assumptions, of course. Turns out the person behind the toon was a guy about my age. Despite my usual hesitation, I kept on with the friendship because we gelled pretty well. We even became FB friends. In the game, we were the closest of allies.

With an ally, there are things you tolerate or even kind of ignore. I ignored the high level of competitiveness in the same way he chose to ignore my lackadaisical approach to things. I'm sure we both had any number of traits that annoyed the other because it didn't matter. We played a game as allies, that was the goal.

A couple of days ago, out of nowhere, he announced that he would be leaving the game. He was sick of it. I told him I understood. I get sick of games and basically everything else after a while too. He was our strongest player and his second character was probably our 5th strongest player. Losing him means we'll be losing Guild Battle more often.

The thing is, I've been playing for two days since then and instead of feeling this sense of loss, I just feel less pressure. Big ambitious players can be helpful, but they also tend to want everyone else to be that way too (though, again, he never said that to me), but at the same time, want all the goodies to go to them first. It's easier to get resources now, for instance. I gained three vital things it would have taken me longer to get with someone that competitive around.

We lost guild battle tonight, but just kind of laughed it off. There were only three of us playing at the moment and it was funny how the Basket kept spending coupons to revive their characters. It's like they didn't notice we weren't actually going to win.

When I was younger, it upset me that people kept leaving me. I toughened up about though. You just move on. In games, in life, in any situation, when someone leaves, even if they were someone pretty vital to the situation, you just move forward. There are always going to be benefits to them being gone if you look for them. Even if it was someone you liked, there are still benefits. Moving forward is an important skill and I'm glad I have it.