Radioactivity

Bit of an odd word to title a blog post with, but recent events inspired me.

I was going to do a games design/programming piece (with pictures!), but that'll have to wait a week or so. Instead I'm going to talk about a rather personal Internet-based story; that of making friends and losing them.

If you know me (and most people that bother reading this will to one extent or another, then you'll know I can be abrasive. I did a whole blog post on the trolling vs. attitude thing, and it's a thing I live by (however much you believe that is up to you!). This abrasiveness comes from a position of being invested in a subject. Be it a video game, a video game developer, or a moral outlook that shapes how I view the world. I have a set of facts that I know for sure, and I base my opinions off of that, like everyone else does.

Except when I disagree with someone, or someone disagrees with me. Then it comes down to "who knows more facts", or whose facts are more relevant. Kinda standard debating really, I mean, that's how Oxford scholars win actual debates instead of pretend ones on the Internet.

So something went down, some guy called me out on my experience in a couple of areas. One, playing a game (fair, I don't have a lot of time for games, and as such my "most played games" amount to 200 hours on Steam each, with dedicated community members hitting 1000+ hours easily in the same games), and two, games modifications. Now this I'm much less likely to agree on, being heavily involved in the modding scene for Dawn of War across a number of sites (and games). Things I regretted were said, I blocked him from my Steam because I wasn't able to put up with his behaviour anymore, and I'm sure he thought similar of me.

And this is the most important thing to realise. No-matter how bad you feel, you've evidently caused this reaction in the other guy (or gal). Whether or not it's justified is completely fecking irrelevant once offense has been caused, because it causes an aggressive spiral that gets out of hand amazingly quickly.

So where am I going with all of this? Radioactivity; the negative potential of relationships build online, lacking that personal touch where you're able to laugh disagreements off. Fallout; the thing that arises from the consequences of a radioactive situation going nuclear. I love science analogies.

You have to shrug it off. Bridges burned, whoever's fault they were, are burned. You can't go back anywhere near so easily, regardless of how right or wrong you think they are.

So writing this is a form of catharsis for me. I've dealt with more than one disintegration of an online friendship before, and it's never nice. But I thought myself old enough to handle them better these days. I was wrong. They always happen. They'll always happen. You can't always please everyone, and they can't always please you. All you can do is hope they have success in their lives, and get on with making that success in your own as well.

But, for the record. No-matter how much of an ass you think I am, I'm always available to PM, or contact through Steam. That's just the kinda guy I am. I find personal exchanges much better at sorting issues out than snipes over a forum thread or some similar stupid setting.

Next time, some actual games dev talk! Been wanting to do this for a while! :D