Addiction

Sometime this weekend, likely during or shortly after the Priesthood session of conference, my mom and I had a little chat about nothing in particular. During our conversation's meanderings, we started to talk a little bit about finishing college and moving on with life. Mom said that she was reading about the fact that more and more men are finishing up college and moving home with their parents and not moving on with their lives. Women, on the other hand, also have a tendency to move home after college, but the women who do so tend to use it as a step to becoming independent. They take that time to save money and get settled, and then they move out and on with their lives. The men just go home and settle in there, content with not being married and content with not being out on their own. Mom said that it is much like the phenomenon in Failure to Launch.

We discussed why this might be. My mom reminded me that when I was in the Young Women program, my YW president had once taught a lesson about chastity and claimed that strong sexual urges are needed because men are lazy and without the need and constant desire to have sex, they'd never get married. So she (my mom) then suggested that perhaps men are staying at home because in today's society, sex is so casual and abundant that men can have sex without taking on the responsibility of raising a family. This was an interesting theory. [My mom read this post and really wants to make sure you all understand that she said this as a joke. She doesn't want you all to think that she's stupid!] Then I asked, "What about video games? Do you think they play a role? A lot of men can just start playing a video game and that fulfills whatever it is they're looking for in life. They simply can't unplug."

The moment I said it, I clicked on a colorful little bubble and ColorJunction informed me that my game was over. You see, the entire time my mother and I were having this conversation, I was playing an online game. Don't worry---I realized right away that my statement "They simply can't unplug" was ironic.

I've been thinking about games lately. Mostly because as school stress builds up, I'm wasting more and more time playing meaningless online games. Take ColorJunction, for example. It's a tiny little game that sits on my personalized google homepage. It takes about a minute to play a full round. The problem is that then it takes you another minute to play another round and another minute to play another round, and another... well, you get the picture.

I've also been known to play Curveball, Snake, and Falldown. In fact, I have them all bookmarked. Recently, Viper sent me a link to the online version of a board game that we like to play. The board game is Carcassone. The online version is called Toulouse, because they can't infringe on copyright.

In case all that wasn't enough, once I realized I was playing lots of online games lately, I remembered Snood, the game I was addicted to my freshman and sophomore years of college. Back in those days, I got my mom addicted, too. I'd talk to her on the phone and suddenly start hearing Snood sound effects in the background. Conversations would go something like this:

Cicada: So. I think that he doesn't like me. I'm heartbroken. I mean, it just really hurts, Mom. You know? No, of course you don't know; you were married at my age. The point is, Mom, that I'm really sad and very---Mom? Was that Snood I just heard? Are you playing Snood right now???

So Snood. Yeah. It took me about thirty seconds to get readdicted.

All this leads me to wonder... Am I going to end up living in my parents' basement?