Friendship Is Hard, But Not This Hard

I'm a loner. That's a fact. I don't particularly find much interest in having people around me for the bulk of my life, outside of a pet or two and a lover. As long as I have those, my social life is pretty much complete. I don't bemoan not having close friends because at the end of the day, I am left only with my own self. The truth of life is that you are always alone, and if you cannot contend with being happy as an individual, you are not living your own life. It's easy to fall into the trap of living through others, and I have seen many do just that. All this to say that I am no expert on forging friendships, even on the Internet. As a matter of fact, I am mostly open to friendships through the Internet. I do see the value of interacting with other people and I enjoy doing so while broadcasting my gaming activities, for example. Friendship is a transactional thing, and the currency is presence. We tell each other about ourselves, share our time with each other talking or gaming together, and offer support when the time calls for it.

"...and u have so much games than I couldn't even dream to have..."

This morning, I received a strange message from someone I recently added to my Steam friend list. I have been a bit careless lately, only because I thought maybe I have been too harsh about the process of finding Steam friends. I used to only invite people to be on my list, but I have been on a string of accepting them when I get an invite - as long as the Steam profile looks, clean... as in no VAC bans, homophobia, racism, and the like. Most of these folks ended up being decent though but perhaps I need to slow down the acceptance process for a little bit. The message started innocently enough as the person asked if he/she could chat with me - I can't tell from the profile of the person's sex as you can conclude, I have never even gotten to the point of knowing details about this individual. Bots like to use "cool and hip" greetings like "yo" so at least I knew the person's profile wasn't hijacked. I said sure and asked "sup?". After typing something confusing about a cat, this person started rambling on about being in a foreign country where Steam games are expensive and then asking me if I could gift the person a copy of Battlefield 2042, which is currently on sale. This of course included that quote about me having a lot of games above which really irked me. How old is this mysterious person even? Since the person really, really wanted BF2042, I assume early 20s? I have been gaming for decades and that is why I have so many games. Let me just say this: I have purchased even more expensive games for my Steam friends, so I am not beyond gifting games to people. But when the first conversation between us is about me having a lot of games so I should gift you a game because it's more expensive in your country versus a friendly rapport to get to know each other? You know the only answer this request deserves is getting removed from my friends list and a Steam block, and I did both of those things swiftly.

So many ways to connect, so many clues to follow for us to get to know each other.

Look, I am not that hard to get close to even if you are not honest about your friendship and you are only after getting a gift of game from me. Did you even bother reading my Steam profile? Didn't notice that Twitch link at the top? Here's one thing that you could have done: you could have stopped by my channel, chat, and get to know each other a bit. I stream to a mostly zero audience so a person showing me some attention on Twitch would have easily gotten on my good side. At least try to do something to connect with me, you know? Favors on Steam are not a rare thing. I have received them on an occasional basis, and I don't mind helping out, that is if I have at least an inkling about who you actually are. Games are expensive, period, and I always think that they should be cheaper: why do you think I always get them while they are on sale? If the game is still expensive while it's on sale, perhaps just wait for the next one? Or try this - build rapport with someone you think can help you in this kind of situation. When I add someone to my Steam friends list, it is my hope that we could potentially connect as digital friends. What this person is looking for is to do a Steam trade. What this person doesn't seem to understand is in a Steam trade, you got to offer something of value back to the person you are trading with to get what you want, and this person has nothing of value to exchange.