Social Meter Full

I'm not a big computer game person probably just because so many games growing up were pretty violent, which I didn't care for, and in recent history I didn't have big chunks of free time to blow on games (as opposed to writing my blog, of course...) But for a short period after grad school during those cold NYC winters I got into the game The Sims, which if you don't know, is like a virtual people aquarium. Now there are several new improved versions that allow your people to live like rock stars, but this was several years back. You feed your people, send them to work, get them to socialize, even remind them to go to the bathroom. It's the sort of thing that's highly entertaining until you realize how eerily it mimics life. I'm not the ruthless God that I've heard some people play, creating polygamous communes and instigating fights, but I did try out a situation where I made a character stay home and be the homemaker while the other three roommates went out to bring home the bacon. An interesting thing happened, and I know I'm going to get skewered for being anti-PC, but hey it's a game. The woman could never keep up with the housekeeping. She became lonely and depressed, indicated by low social meter and low 'fun' level. When I took a character who was a Virgo (as am I), meaning more introverted, and sent her to parties, her 'fun' level plummeted when forced to chat with new people and make friends. I gotta say, Electronic Arts did an incredible job with the game. Anyway the point of my story is that I stopped playing when I noticed that my characters were plateauing in their careers. After a certain point, they don't get automatic raises and promotions for improving skills or plain old experience. They had to make a minimum number of friends and schmooze in order to reach the next level. But of course, in this game as in life, to maintain the social network, you have to constantly talk to your 'friends' or make new ones, and the friendship points drop when you don't socialize. So it's incredibly high maintenance to be social. It sucked away all their free time and they were constantly tired; sleeping past their alarm clocks.

So I stopped playing.

In real life if you don't feel like playing anymore that could suggest some ominous consequences, or maybe just inspire plots like Office Space. I'm a simple gal though, I check into a book or bad TV. I'm going to avoid getting into the obvious parallels between the Sims' career and my work life now since I suspect that my periodic career reassessments are about as interesting as overly detailed traffic stories about that rude driver on the freeway....

Still, since coming upon that game I often think of myself as having a social meter. In spite of my normally quiet weekends, this past one I had 1 Dinner at the relations, 1 company picnic, 1 Bday Party (of course I love Tamika and her friends are awesome but this requires socializing too), and another housere-warming party in one weekend. I think my social meter is maxed out for the next month. I spent Sunday sleeping and watching TV, with the minor accomplishments of saying hi to my brother at his place and installing a blind with hubby. This morning I fantasized about calling in sick just to sit on my ass all day and indulge in all the things Hubby frowns upon: daytime television, ramen, sitting around in my PJs. Of course it's kind of funny now, but when I'm old it will look appropriately nutty. I used to joke about a friend I had in NYC whom I'll call Tennessee who was a nice guy but also could be a total asshole. The joke was that he had only 20 minutes of Nice in him per day, and if he used it up, he would tear into anyone who made a wrong comment. It was a good way to diffuse him when he was grouchy...you could just say 'Oh you met your quota already today?' and he'd smile and laugh or answer properly, 'Fuck you.' What a character.

Sidenote: I just caught up on Kjerste's blog and laughed to myself, remembering how I noticed her toenails and thought I would never be a painted-flower-on-big-toe kind of girl. The reason I hate salons and makeup counters also is how they point out 'flaws.' Those makeup counter people fire out nice comments to me like 'would you like me to fill in your eyebrows?' Fill in!? I didn't know they were empty! So of course I have to go home and stare at what I thought were perfectly fine eyebrows. It's a drive by shooting with a flutter of long eyelashes. Even my years of highly-refined-NYC-ignoring-people skills still don't always insulate me from everything.

Sidenote #2: Yes I know it's September 11th. No I don't want to think about it more...it was a terrible time in NYC. This blog is too dorky to be a forum on the matter so I leave that for the proper sites.