Please note: All names used in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
You meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends.
But nobody talks about the darker side of online gaming.
Here is my story of how online gaming changed my perspective of humanity.
Sit back and enjoy it.
I was an old PS2 gamer, no online platforms for me, solo gaming was my thing.
So in 2021 I joined the Roblox community and enjoyed reading the weird things people can talk about and meeting different types of people.
Late that year I met this young guy (John) and we started casually chatting, mostly about the game we were in as its this and the races that brought us together.
In time a friendship grew between us, and we started chatting outside of Roblox. He would tell me stuff about his life, and I would share back things.
He would come to me for advice when it came to his girlfriends acting weird and I would gladly help were I can.
Not long and we started calling each other’s best friends.
But one night he started dating this one girl (Bella) who clearly hates me, but I kept my distance and gave them space. He would start using me as a shield when he does not feel like speaking to her.
John introduced me to another guy (Ben) and his girlfriend (Sara) and after a short fight about … I don’t remember anymore.
We became friends as well and would sometimes hang around for hours in games just chatting.
But I became frustrated at one point as John would become possessive and get angry when I want to hang out with Ben or my other friend. So I asked Ben one day what’s going on with John as they were friends long before I met them, he said he would talk to John.
Now here is the ironic part of this, While I was trying to figure out why John is distancing himself from me. His new girlfriend (Leila) worked on becoming my friend and we even started calling each other’s sister. Funny right?
But in frustration with them Ben’s girlfriend (Sara) started to act weird, and I saw the change almost immediately.
It started small. She would be offline and Ben, John and I will be hanging out and suddenly she would appear and ask Ben straight “What is going on?”
Ben sometimes tells me she doesn’t want me around, but he is sorting it out.
So, I tried to tell her that I don’t want her boyfriend, he is just a friend to me. As that was the truth with Ben, I felt relaxed enough to be my true self. And we could chat for hours about anything under the sun.
She did not stop she starting to make up stories and spread lies.
When we were in the same server and Sara appeared, Ben would go quiet and act like he could not see my chats.
Ben would tell me I am imagining things. He would act like I don’t exist in the same server and openly chat with others.
After joining him and trying to find out what’s going on and how we can fix things. They started calling me a stalker and smeared my name through the mud in Roblox.
So, I pulled away a bit and concentrated on my friendship with John hoping he had cooled down and was willing to talk. But he had changed, he would join me in games and happily chatted the night away then Leila would join and he would go quiet. I asked him once what’s going on and he told me she gets angry as he spends too much time with me and that she thinks gaming is for kids.
So to keep the peace we kept the gaming to a minimum, but he became silent and I could not reach him. Worried, I contacted Leila privately and asked her what’s going on.
Her reply was that’s how he is and promptly blocked me on socials.
That stung I thought we were friends and now even she is pulling away. My heart hurt and my brain went into panic mode.
But one night he joined me in a game and told me straight:
” Stop pursuing people they will talk to you when they deem fit. I will only reply to a text when I feel it is important.”
Those words knocked me so hard I could not reply at all. Was my friendship not enough? Did he even care enough to work on this friendship? Was it even real to him at all?
I was so confused and hurt that I could not process his words.
I just left and avoided him from there on. Deleted and blocked him on my socials outside of Roblox. In the end I just unfriended him from Roblox, with a hole in my chest as I don’t know what I did wrong.
As Ben and his girl started openly calling me the Devil and tried to dox me, somehow, they even found my personal Facebook account and started posting stuff there.
With everything they did and their flying monkeys I could not go into a public server without being attacked by random players.
I just changed my username and changed my avatar’s looks and kept quiet and stayed in my private servers.
I was to hurt and confused to face the fights from strangers and did not have the energy left to defend myself at all.
Ran into Ben about a year later but he will still not talk to me.
Other friends of his told me he hated my mind and regret ever getting to know me.
Of John I haven’t heard anything at all. He just vanished.
It took me two years to be able to face a public server in any Roblox game again and still some games just have too many good memories that still hurt, so I do not play them anymore.
So’ yes, Roblox is cool. You meet amazing people, make friends and create memories.
But there is another side to online gaming that nobody really talks about.
Sometimes friendships end without warning. Sometimes people you trust become strangers, and sometimes you never get an explanation for what went wrong.
I still enjoy gaming, but I approach friendships differently now. I no longer chase people or beg for attention. I’ve learned that friendships should never feel like something you have to fight for alone.
Even with more than 100 people on my friend list, I sometimes feel like I’m playing alone in a crowded room.
And perhaps that’s the saddest part of this story.
I never found out what I did wrong, I just had to learn to live without the answers.
This is from my point of view; others might view it differently.
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