Another story arrived in the mailbox today. Thank you.

You brought up point that I have not commented on much but may have some significance: loneliness. Is one of the reasons why people spend hours and hours online because they want to feel less alone in this world?

"Hello, this is another story of MMOG addiction only that this time it's from the addict's point of view. Let me start by saying that I'm 19 years old and currently working as a programmer.

It all starts back in the early High School, I was an excellent student, I had goals in my life and you could call me a good looking guy. At that time I started playing games at my free time, situation wasn't very bad I was just having my fun. Later on I discovered online games and the experience was much better. This kept going on and every year that passed I would find a new game and I would get even worse addiction. At my last year of high-school were my exams were the most critical of all the years I was very badly addicted with a MMOG. School, Comptuer, Sleep. That was my schedule. At that time I lost a girl that cared for me, I lost most of my friends because I was never there for them, I stopped being a good looking guy because I never exercised and I lost a lot of weight. In the end I failed in my exams, got in a low-grade university and gave up my dream of being an Engineer. After that the summer that followed I got the game called World of Warcraft. I played and played and played and played. At some point I had played around 100 hours in 1 week. Then I left, for 2 months I went away from my city to a place where I didn't have a computer. In the beggining I was very bored a bit later though I got used to it, made a few new friends and had a nice summer. Then I returned home and the addiction kept going. Around 1 month after summer I got a job which limited my playtime to around 4-5 hours a day. Now 3 months later I still got my job and I still raid almost everynight. I'm still alone and I still hate myself for doing this. Why don't you stop you might say? Well I believe that's the point of my whole mail.

I have asked myself many times: Do I like this life? No I don't. Many times I've thought to log on my account and destroy all the items on my hunter and delete the character itself (that character IS one of the best equipped in game) but then I think: "Then what?"
What am I going to do after I stop playing? I don't have friends, I don't have someone to care for me. My life will be even emptier after that. We live in a world of fashion. A world where you got to be trendy to be liked, I'm not that. I hate how all the people wear masks and hide behind them the same way we hide behind our characters in-game. They talk shit for a "friend" of theirs and when that "friend" arrives they kiss him and talk with him.

I'm really sad that I've given up the life I once had because the friendships I had were real and not with people wearing masks.I wish I could have it back but you can't go back in time can you? I guess I'll keep playing, maybe one day something will make me change but untill then I don't want to be more alone than I already am because believe it or not when we "talk to the computer", we do actually talk to real persons that keep us company when we stay up at nights playing."