I spent many years on World of Warcraft. I am a solo gamer too so it didn’t make much sense, but every now and then I’d bump into someone and we’d form a lasting memory.
I met a college professor 30 years older than me and we became very close friends entirely by accident. Hell, as silly as it is I had a very deep love for her.
She seen me jumping into a wall one evening (glitch in Stormwind) and she asked me what I was doing. I took her under the city and showed her my spot. I thought that was that, but a few nights later I was down there and she popped in and said, “I thought I might find you here.”
For months I did nothing but sit under Stormwind and talk to her. She was one of the most incredible people I had ever met. We came from completely different worlds. I was an uneducated, white, hillbilly junkie. She was a very educated black college professor and activist who was in a totally different place in her life.
In no other reality would we have connected like we did. She was legit my best friend in the whole world for a time. We went from text to ventrilo and in my mind, I don’t remember it as staring at a screen and talking through a microphone. I remember it like I was there. (Edit: I remember her actual face in my memories too, because we connected on social media and talked there as well. Crazy how memory works.)
That alone made the service game worth it haha.
We live in an interesting time. That’s for sure.