There, I said it. I bet that's not something you'll hear people on the Internet say too often.
Although to be fair, I'm not sure if you can call what I do “sucking.” I have a .80-something kill/death spread in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and if you feel that sucks then feel free to post in the comments about what a n00b I am, but I consider it to be at least decent. Certainly better than my K/D spread in Modern Warfare 2. My win-to-loss ratio is much, much worse, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I consistently rage-quit (another confession I'm sure you don't hear a lot of people on the Internet making), and now we're getting to the heart of the problem.
But I kicked ass at Dark Souls, so get at me.
I hate Call of Duty... when I'm losing. If I have a negative kill/death spread, or my teammates are getting demolished, or I keep dying just short of earning my next Scorestreak... I quit. Simple as that. It's a petty, stupid, childish thing to do, but it's the reality I live. And when I don't quit, I curse, I slam my fists, I make incoherent growls and barks, and on one occasion I actually had to grab a nearby pillow and scream into it for a few moments before I could calm back down. Playing Call of Duty turns me into to a friggin' 12 year-old.
So no one really notices.
My competitive nature extends to quite a few things outside of Call of Duty. If I may get Freudian for a moment, I'd say it has to do with me being the youngest sibling out of three and having a very talented older brother who's only two years my senior. I've lived most of my life being “second-best,” and thus I feel I have to be better than him at something (FYI, he has a solid 1.00 K/D spread in Black Ops 2, the jerk). But that's not entirely fair: I am better than him at things. I can write better than him. I can speak more eloquently than him. I have a girlfriend and he doesn't.
Of course, none of those are particularly competitive things, and when it comes to things that we actually can compete over, namely video games, he's got the upper hand. We're both very good at Halo, but he's better. We're both very good at Mario Kart, but he's better. I have the advantage when it comes to fighting games, but he doesn't even play fighting games, so it's hard to be competitive about something when there's no competition.
So I've gone at length and I haven't even answered the question I'm sure all of you are wondering right now: “Why am I writing this?” To be honest, I couldn't tell you. I haven't had some Earth-shattering paradigm-shift, and I haven't turned my life around and made everything better. I'm still competitive to a fault, and I still get mad and throw hissy fits when I lose. I still feel a compulsion to be good at things I'm simply not good at. I've played Call of Duty for years, and I plateaued somewhere around CoD4. I'm not about to get any better, and yet I still feel as if I have to keep on trying anyway.
But maybe this is the start of a better way of thinking. Maybe the next time I play a video game and get ready to rage quit like a b*tch, I'll remember this blog, and anyone who may comment on it sharing similar feelings (or just calling me a n00b), and it'll help me remember that, yes, it is just a game, and yes, winning isn't everything, and yes, if you want your Scorestreaks so badly then pick some easier rewards, you dodo. Maybe this won't help me at all: after all, this was just the confession of an overly-competitive gamer, not the revelation of an overly-competitive gamer. Whatever comes of it, just know that, yes, I suck at Call of Duty, and I'm going to do my best to be proud of it.
There's a reason why this is my emblem.