As a kid, I spent most of my time outside of school just playing video games.
At school and around strangers I was really quiet…
my parents would tell everyone I was shy.
And I thought I was shy too.
But then I would go home…
close my bedroom door…
put my headphones on…
and somehow become completely different.
I would scream at games…
swear at random people online…
talk to people for the entire day…
and some of the friends I made there honestly felt closer to me than the friends I saw in real life.
So for a long time I basically thought:
Yeah… this is probably the real me.
I’m just too scared to act like this in real life.
I’m sitting with guests for dinner…
answering their questions and pretending to be talkative and all.
my parents would usually tell people I’m shy and quiet.
Okay, I thank my parents for the dinner and say goodbye to the guests, I run upstairs…
and after closing my door, I immediately hop on my games…
…
I’m just playing games with my friends, and sometimes I get genuinely scared…
WOAAHH
And I don’t think much about it…
I can barely scream at school or anywhere else so I’m just letting out all my energy.
But then, out of nowhere…
Light knock
My mother opens the door:
Alex, could you please tone it down? I’m trying to sleep.
Oh my god, yes. Sorry mother.
And I’m thinking to myself:
Damn, I’m just having fun. But of course I need to be quiet… as always…
But my mother really needs to sleep.
I start whispering to my friends instead and as they’re screaming and having fun.
I just want to scream again.
…
Another time I’m in my apartment and forget to be quiet, and I’m screaming my lungs out and rolling on my chair whilst playing games…
and all of the sudden I hear from underneath me:
BANG, BANG, BANG
OH SHIT. What was that?!
Oh my god, it’s my downstairs neighbor…
I’ve been screaming so much that I forgot somebody underneath me is literally trying to sleep.
And it’s midnight.
I really need to be quiet, holy shit…
It’s winter break, and I’m on an online platform called Discord.
And I’m just talking to people on there, and playing games…
Whenever I’m playing a game and someone tells me I’m bad:
Shut the fuck up. Nobody likes you!
You’re a loser.
Haha what an idiot he is.
…
And whenever I used to lose really badly
You’re a fucking idiot.
You got so lucky!
I would talk to my friends for hours, I spent 14 hours some days just playing this game called Rust.
And when my friends and I met people on there…
I would insult people and just copy what my friends were doing.
Nobody knew how I looked like, nobody knew me in real life.
…
I’m talking to people online and they say something I don’t like…
Now in real life, if I don’t like somebody, I talk back to them with a smile, slowly distancing myself but saying everything they want to hear. Until I’m eventually out of their sight.
But online, I just tell them they’re a completely idiot…
and I block them.
My blocked list was so long I had to scroll down for a minute to get to the end.
…
The day after I’ve berated people and screamed my lungs out, I’m in school with my real friend group. And I’m just on my phone….
my friends are laughing and chatting, but I’m just sitting with them being the quietest kid in the friend group.
I’m the smallest kid as well, so I don’t want to say anything wrong to absolutely anyone. Because I know if I curse at someone like I do online, I won’t be safe…
I meet a guy in a game I play…
and we instantly connect. We talk about real life, scream together in the games and insult people together…
it’s almost like it’s me and him against the rest of the world.
Because with him, I can show him the part of me that isn’t quiet…
So I’m talking to him constantly…
and we don’t even know each other’s appearances. So I know that he isn’t just talking to me for external reasons. He wanted to talk to me.
He doesn’t know I’m the smallest kid…
the quietest kid…
or the kid who pretends to be someone else in real life.
We spend 14 hour days on the weekends just playing together. And after a few months of playing together, he becomes one of my closest friends…
yet, he lives further away from me than any of my real life friends.
…
Me and my friends are sitting in school together on some couches. They mostly talk to each other and I join in every now and then…
But I’m not really interested in what most of my friends are saying…
I’m talking to my friends online, just chatting with them. Telling them the insane stuff were going to do tonight after school…
Can’t wait to go home and swear…
scream my lungs out…
and talk about life…
I just want to go home and play games.
And when I think about all of this now…
I don’t really know if saying the online version was the “real me” makes sense anymore.
Because yeah…
online I definitely showed parts of myself that I was too scared to show in real life.
I screamed.
I talked constantly.
I told people about my life.
I made friends with people I had never even seen before.
And I think that part really was me.
But then I also think about all the people I insulted…
all the people I blocked because I didn’t like one thing they said…
and all the things I would say online that I would never say if that person was actually standing in front of me.
Was that also the real me?
…
Maybe.
It was still me doing it.
But I don’t know if being able to do whatever I wanted automatically made me more myself.
In real life I was scared of what people thought about me…
so I hid a lot.
Online I didn’t have to care as much because if someone hated me…
I could literally just block them.
And disappear.
…
So maybe I wasn’t taking off my mask when I went online.
Maybe I just had a different one there.
I think both versions were me.
The quiet kid at school was me.
The kid screaming at his computer was me.
The person talking about life with someone he had never met was me.
And unfortunately…
the kid calling random people fucking idiots was me too.
…
I used to think being myself meant removing everything that was holding me back.
But now I’m not really sure.
Because sometimes what was holding me back was fear.
And sometimes…
it was just remembering that there was another person on the other side.