My dad and I weren't very close at all.
Part of it was a personality clash... he was a tough, no-nonsense military dude whilst I was the wildest of things. And while I'm not going to apologize for being six, I understand how my unrepentant attitude could have widen the gap that already existed between us.
The other problem was that the guy's job was so demanding that I barely got to see him. He'd leave the house before dawn and not return home til dinner time, usually arriving to a myriad of complains about me from the school, the babysitter and my own family. At some point we both seemed to decide that it was far easier to not engage outside of some pleasantries.
But then there were moments where to unsurmountable gap seemed conquerable, and those usually involved gaming.
Unprompted, he'd sit beside me on the living room and grab the second Genesis controller just to challenge me to a race on Road Rash 3. Or he would come home with a CD case on hand and show me the latest PC game he had gotten on the way home. At one point we were out at night, doing some late grocery shopping when we came across a newstand carrying all three Alone In The Dark games. Dad bought the first one and we took it home, playing it on a sort of "co-op" mode for weeks. I SO looked forward to those playing sessions.
Unsurprisingly, Alone In The Dark 1 was the first game I ever beat.
On what remains one of my happiest earliest memories, one day I woke up to something really strange pressing against my hands and I found myself holding a still-unopened copy of Alone In The Dark 2. He was grinning like I had never seen him before.
These happy times wouldn't last, but I treasure those moments of unspoken understanding that were made possible by staring at a bunch of pixels or some barely human-looking polygons on a wooden screen.
What about you? Has gaming help you bond with someone like that?
Part of it was a personality clash... he was a tough, no-nonsense military dude whilst I was the wildest of things. And while I'm not going to apologize for being six, I understand how my unrepentant attitude could have widen the gap that already existed between us.
The other problem was that the guy's job was so demanding that I barely got to see him. He'd leave the house before dawn and not return home til dinner time, usually arriving to a myriad of complains about me from the school, the babysitter and my own family. At some point we both seemed to decide that it was far easier to not engage outside of some pleasantries.
But then there were moments where to unsurmountable gap seemed conquerable, and those usually involved gaming.
Unprompted, he'd sit beside me on the living room and grab the second Genesis controller just to challenge me to a race on Road Rash 3. Or he would come home with a CD case on hand and show me the latest PC game he had gotten on the way home. At one point we were out at night, doing some late grocery shopping when we came across a newstand carrying all three Alone In The Dark games. Dad bought the first one and we took it home, playing it on a sort of "co-op" mode for weeks. I SO looked forward to those playing sessions.
Unsurprisingly, Alone In The Dark 1 was the first game I ever beat.
On what remains one of my happiest earliest memories, one day I woke up to something really strange pressing against my hands and I found myself holding a still-unopened copy of Alone In The Dark 2. He was grinning like I had never seen him before.
These happy times wouldn't last, but I treasure those moments of unspoken understanding that were made possible by staring at a bunch of pixels or some barely human-looking polygons on a wooden screen.
What about you? Has gaming help you bond with someone like that?
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