Volrath89

Interesting. But I don't think I am always craving for dopamine, at least I'd like to believe that hehe.

I'm a kind of functional member of society, a bit introverted yes, but I'm able to do everything more or less normally. Some social anxiety, but I'm able to overcome it when I really need to, I can work and function normally and honestly I wouldn't like to take drugs or treatment if I don't need to. If I had ADHD it might be a very mild case.

Yes I was going to mention just that. Having children will make your life purposeful probably forever? While your hobby has an expiration date and you'll still have many years left.

But now that I think about it, it's the same with children. When a 30 year old parent hits the 50 year old mark his children would likely be already left from home. So it's almost the same, still many years left.

PD: No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I'd have forgotten to check your response if I hadn't manually be looking for something in my own comments' history

I intentionally don't want to say the game name or mentioned many details as I'm afraid maybe many people would like to try it, and some of them could get addicted like me. It would be a bad outcome for the world :D

Selling the PC and going to mac is great advice. Many times I feel a small temptation to just go download/install and set up my keyboard shortcuts again because it would take just about 1 hour. If I had to buy a new PC to do that I wouldn't even consider it.

The problem is that I'm a C# developer, and even though it's now possible to develop .net core in a mac without issues I don't think I want to do it. Also I find macs extremely expensive, my ThinkPad is a beast in specs and costed 1/4 of an equivalent mac. Well of course it's also uglier, heavier, makes more noise and spends more electricity than a mac, but I'm ok with that, I like my computer ugly on the outside but performant in the inside :)

Sorry if this comment sounds out of place, there is not bad intention from me... but do you also have a daily set of short and long term expectations for your wife and does she meet them as diligently as you seem to meet her expectations of you?

Both were affected for sure. Marriage is now recovering and I changed to a better job recently but I was warned many times in my former job

Funny thing, I don't consider myself to be a "gamer" I had not touched video games since high school and I'm now mid 30s.

It was just this particular game that hooked me up. And yes the problem is the ladder system which makes it never-ending. There is always another human of about your same level range to play with, available with just a click.

Yes, that's the plan. Why do you need a friend for cycling btw?

Yes, you are right, the problem with the game I played is the ladder system. And yes there is definitely not an end. There will be always a better player than you.

Problem is video games with defined endings don't really appeal to me at all. I'm not really into video games in general, it was just something particular about this game that got me hooked. Will try sports now

Seems like 2 years is about the time it takes to wake up hehe

Yes I also think I have a personality prone to addictions. For example I've never touched WoW because I know the theme of the game, I know myself and I'm pretty sure I'd get hooked to it, probably to never come back to real life :D

Good luck getting away from the car stuff. Maybe try sports, it's something I really want to start this year. Even if we get addicted to sports too, at least it will be healthy!

That's the funny thing, since high school I was never really into video games at all.

It was just this particular game that I tried because it was recommended by some friends and it got me hooked. I'm not interested in trying other games now to be honest.

I was considering re installing the game and try to just play less hours, but you are right, it actually feels really rewarding even if it's just 4 months. I'll try to not install it again for more months

Which worthwhile things?

When I was younger I asked my parents to buy me the Play Station 2 and a couple of games and realized it actually wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. So I didn't buy another console ever again.

But this game hit something in my brain that made me so addicted to it. As I said, maybe the flow, maybe the competitiveness, the ladder, or a combination of them all.

Yes. Spot on comment. You are absolutely right

I'm already "clean" for 4 months

I moved to a different country 10.000 km away from home this year, that was also a reason why I wanted to cut the game off my life. I had lot of stuff to do. Now I am already established in the new country with some spare time in hand that's why I wrote this post

I don't know why you are being downvoted, as I find your reasoning valid.

My SO was never keen on the idea of having children. I thought I wanted to have children 5 years ago, but it was really just a default society behavior, not something I had stopped to think.

When I had no more excuses to delay having kids (healthy, married, stable job, two real estate properties) I really gave it a thought and concluded I didn't want to. I seriously touched the topic with my SO and told her I'd understand if she would leave me, but she said she was relieved by my decision because she also didn't want to have children.

What you said was one of the reasons "in favor" of having children, because you are right, life with children gets complicated in many senses but also gets simpler at least in life purpose. You don't need to "kill" time anymore for decades. But I concluded at least for me, it was not a strong enough reason to have children.

you don't want to know

no, never been evaluated for ADHD. But let's assume I knew I had it, what would change?

But how can you manage to restrict yourself to play only on the weekends?

For me as a fully remote software dev, just after the daily was over and nobody needed to call me for anything I'd just play a couple of hours and then go back to work.

And yes being top of something feels great, I wasn't even close to top 0.01%, but I was top 20 of my country maybe top 10% worldwide and kept improving. I don't know if I was close to my ceiling, I don't think so because I had not started paying private coaches, but I considered it.

My SO is not into games at all unfortunately...

Yes I know leisure is not irrelevant, I'm now trying to get into sports. Cycling and Squash. I like both and I'm pretty sure it will be super healthy if I can stick to them.

Yes, those 2000 hours in my original post don't include all the hours spent in youtube/twitch. Which were a lot.

Great comment and yes, I am definitely too competitive and always want to be the best at everything :/

You are right maybe video games are not the best hobby for me

Yes I also think it's about my personality. I'm also highly competitive. I don't know if I would be able to play just a bit for fun.

For me the fun is in trying to be the best among my friends/discord groups, then the best of the country, then the best of the world (ofc the best of the world streams on twitch and the game is his job and main source of income)

In those 2 years I was able to go reach top20 in my country and without paying for any 1-1 coaching which is common for many to keep improving

I'd like to play again if I could go down to 3 hours per week.

3 hours per day including weekends is too much in my opinion. Take into account I work full time, we went to trips and did stuff together with my wife in those 2 years. So if I was away for a weekend I would play 6 hours for 2 days to compensate.

I basically was playing that game at every slice of free time that I had available.

Yes at the beginning there was some shame. Then because of the lockdowns my wife was always at home and the shame went away :D

Although she hated the fact that while I was playing I was so focused that I didn't listen to her (I also had headphones on), in the end she accepted it and would just write me a message telling me to talk to her when the match was over...

Also the decision to cut the game off completely came from me 100%, she never demanded that I should stop playing completely

Cheats are not enabled in multiplayer mode (which is the addicting one for me)

I don't know where do you live but it's definitely not necessary to own a home for having a family. Assuming you are a male, just having a stable job and actually wanting to have a family gives you a great chance of success with many, many women.

Also mid 30s is so young, you still have at least a decade to find a significant other and build a family if that's what you want.

What hobby?

I am already living in a 1st world country, just with a low salary, but at least writing software. I'm waiting for the permanent residency to start seriously interviewing everywhere and I am already on the leetcode grind

FAANG for me is just a dream because of the salary. I don't think there is anywhere in continental Europe where you can make well over €100k per year other than google/meta.

Overall I think positively of the 7-8 rounds of interview + leetcode grind. If it was just because of resume or credentials, I'm not so sure someone with a darker skin tone and clearly foreign sounding name like me would even get a chance to interview. I think tech is very empowering for us, "smart" people from the minorities, at least it gives us hope of fairness and objectivity

I have completely changed my life in order to get to live (legally) in a 1st world country and will put more than a year of preparation to hopefully pass the interview at Google, Meta or Microsoft. If I fail I guess I’ll probably go back to my home country and live cheaply