How I met my best friends online
I’ve been a gamer for most of my life, I started with an old Dreamcast I got given at around 12–13 years old and fondly played Sonic Adventure and other games. I then moved to an Xbox Original, at the time I didn’t have Xbox Live so stuck to single-player games, I loved Rayman 3. Only when I got an Xbox 360 did I actually play games online, I started off with Gears of War.
Gears of War is a bloody, violent, and adrenaline-filled game, so naturally, as a kid, I loved it! The battles with other players were intense, some of the most intense games I’ve ever played were in Gears of War. It also introduced me to trash-talking, at the start of a lobby, when you died, during rounds, and at the end of a game can you hear the opposite team. This resulted in being the only player at times, totally alone and unable to hear anyone until you either won or lost the round, you knew your team was watching. At the end of a round, you’d go from total silent to both teams shouting at each other normally. I had my fair share of rivalries in that game and it kept the game interesting and made me want to improve.
Gears of War was my first online experience and this is where I met my friend Dan. Dan was the same age as me and we both loved Gears of War. I’ll never forget us beating the other teams together on a regular basis, we were pretty good. I met other people but they didn’t last long term, I and Dan then moved to Call of Duty 4.
Call of Duty 4 had one of the most toxic communities I’ve ever come across. Racism, death threats, sexism, homophobia, and any other phobia you can think of. The game itself was fun but I was absolute rubbish at it, whereas Dan was amazing at it and carried me most of the time. We met people and they came and went and we played it every day for quite some time.
Many years and games later I started playing Black Ops 2, I loved zombies and played the Black Trilogy a lot because of that. I was friends with a guy Stu who introduced me to a girl and her boyfriend that he was friends with in real life, they lived in the same apartment complex. At first, the girl Chris was shy and I don’t recall her speaking at the beginning much at all. Her boyfriend Matt talked quite a bit and I ended up playing with them both often on zombies. Eventually, Chris started talking and was less shy and after a few months of us playing zombies daily, we had become good friends.
One night I was playing with Chris, Matt, and one of their friends Liam. Liam jokingly said he should come down and they would hang out together, Chris and Matt said sure if you want. They then asked me if I wanted to visit and I was like…Ummm sure? I had not met anyone online, not even Dan who I had known at this point for 10+ years. I packed a bag and waited for Matt to come and pick me up, I was excited but also wondered if he was actually going to come for real. He did come and I got in the car for the journey to theirs which was like 2 hours by car. I was kind of nervous meeting Chris and Liam, I got into the car with Matt and didn’t really register or think about it so wasn’t as nervous about the whole situation at that point, it seemed to happen so fast.
Finally got arrived, I met Chris and Liam and we sat down and spend the days I stayed talking, gaming, and watching movies. It was really fun and I was glad I agreed to come to see them. We ended up doing this a few times, I would go to theirs and stay and we would go out and do things and just spend time together. At some point Matt and Chris broke up and to be honest, I was a friend of Chris but Matt I wasn’t so sure about. He ended up going away and starting a new life and I stayed friends with Chris.
Sometime later, Chris and Dan unbelievably met up in real life and started dating. They had met through me and talked for a while before meeting up. Dan moved away and lived with Chris and I visited them and saw Dan for the first time in 10+ years. The story isn’t as interesting as it may seem, I walked in, Dan was sitting down and smirked as he saw me and said “Alright?” I stayed a few days and visited them both a few times, one time we all went to a theme park and I and Chris went on the rollercoasters and had so much fun. I love rollercoasters and scary rides in general, I really want to go to a theme park again now, I miss it. It rained that day and I and Chris were soaking wet and shivering by the end of the day.
Time passed and Dan and Chris moved back up North to where Dan lived before he met Chris and has all his life. Chris told me she was pregnant, they had a daughter and life continued on. At this point, I had been friends with Luke a couple of times and he, funnily enough, lived about 10 mins from Chris and Dan now. Luke, I met playing Overwatch I’m sure, my memory, as I get older, is terrible it seems. He became a good friend over the years and we talked and played often.
After some time Luke asked if I wanted to stay at his as he booked time off work but couldn’t travel as planned. I got picked up by the train station and got into the car, he says he couldn’t understand me when I first started speaking and I kind of couldn’t either, southern and northern lads meet and this is the result. We went to a place where a beacon was and other old buildings with the history behind them on signs. Luke didn’t want to go to the beacon but I convinced him and it was quite the walk. The view on top of the hill where the beacon was, was very nice.
We also went to a national park and that was beautiful and huge, I never went to a national park before but I’d go to more now after seeing how nice they are. We also had diner with Chris & Dan the last night and being with my three favorite people was great. Because of covid I haven’t seen them in over a year and a half, we have made plans to meet up again next month and I can’t wait!
