Daily Deals from a Nerd Mom

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I used to be the friend who was on every single night. My old Xbox crew lived in Xbox party chat, and somehow we were all just there, around the same time, night after night. No planning required. We’d load in, figure out what we were in the mood for, and go. Some nights that meant hide and seek or duels in someone’s house (usually mine) in ESO. Other nights it was dungeons, trials, PVP out in Cyrodiil, or hopping into Paladins, GTA 5, Overwatch, whatever we felt like. It was easy in a way I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

Some of the best people I’ve ever known, I met through gaming. My best friend included. We haven’t played together in a long time at this point, but we still text and send each other reels almost every day, always saying we should game together again and somehow never actually doing it. Partly that’s because she’s landed in the same place I have, mostly solo now, barely gaming at all these days either. But I think about those years a lot. Some of the best times and hardest laughs of my life happened in a party chat with those people.

Then, like most friend groups do, it slowly dwindled. People played less. People moved on to different games. Eventually I found a smaller group that still played together, but by then I was already losing my multiplayer steam.

The bigger shift happened when we moved in with my parents. Our living situation now makes it a lot harder to just casually jump into a party with anyone, and honestly, multiplayer gives me anxiety these days in a way it never used to. Part of it is attention. When I’m gaming now, half of me is still listening for my husband, keeping an ear out for my grandmother, or checking whether our elderly cat, Rory, is doing okay. Multiplayer needs a kind of focus I don’t have leftover most nights. Single player lets me just be. I can relax into it in a way that actually feels good, and if something needs me, there’s a pause button waiting instead of a party full of people wondering where I went.

These days I even play with one earbud in so I can hear the game and still hear everything happening around me. My Xbox profile has been set to appear offline for years now too, mostly because I got tired of getting hit with a wall of messages and party invites the second I logged on. Even on the mobile alliance game I play now, I barely chat anymore. I log on, do what needs doing, and log off.

I don’t regret any of it. This is just where life has put me right now, and single player fits that season better. But I’ll be honest, I do miss those old nights sometimes. The easy in and out, the no plans required, just knowing my people would be online whenever I was, my best friend included. That part I still think about, even while we keep promising each other a game night that never happens.