It does not matter what I look like. When I am playing video games, I can be myself.

My early childhood did not consist of climbing trees and playing sports.

Instead of going outside and playing kickball during recess, I did nothing unless it related to video games.

When I was in elementary school, hanging out with friends was a means of visiting someone’s house and playing games like “Star Wars: Battlefront II” and “Super Smash Bros. Brawl.”

The only time I feel comfortable when I meet someone new is if it is through video games.

It is hard for me to talk to someone if they do not have the same interests as me.

When I meet someone who does not play video games, I feel like someone who is out of reach from everyone else. I feel like there is no way to get to know me unless someone plays video games.

The only people that I keep in touch with are the ones who play video games with me.

I am not good at keeping friends. All I want to do is play games, but most people do not feel the same.

Growing up through high school was not enjoyable.

During my first year of high school, I did not have any friends for a good portion of the year.

I remember during lunch I would go eat away from everyone else because I doubted that anyone was like me.

Eventually, I was approached by someone who also plays video games and had a small group of friends that I ended up staying with for the rest of high school.

Going to Bakersfield College has put me in a strange position.

Everyone is focusing on school. If I want to make friends, I need to initiate.

For now, I am fine with not having friends at BC because I already have friends that I have met through video games.

I have a group of friends that I met through playing “Overwatch.”

I met two people through the ranked matchmaking in the game during the summer of last year.

They were both good at the game and we won the match that we were in. They invited me to their Discord server to talk during other matches. Discord is a program marketed toward gamers that is used to type, speak, and use video to communicate with people online.

We ended up becoming good friends with each other and we are going to meet in real life during Twitch Con in Long Beach.

I am so excited to meet these guys because playing video games with them is one of my favorite things to do.

I also have a group of friends that I met through the game “Black Desert Online.”

BDO is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and I started playing the game during the summer of this year with some people from the group of people that I met from “Overwatch.”

My friend introduced me to a Discord server that is dedicated to a Twitch streamer.

I have met many people on that server and I still talk to them almost daily.

Video games provide me a method of talking to people without having to worry about judgement; I do not know what I would do without games.