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Unfortunately, long ago, upon graduating from high school (mid-90’s), I was considered by the state of Delaware and the US educational system, not “smart enough” to go directly to a university.  Probably cause of my poor PSAT/SAT scores.  I have no idea.  But I remember being told by my counselor that I could probably hope to become a gym teacher one day.  (Mind you I graduated from that same school magna cum laude with two engineering degrees.) Which to me was a riot cause I pretty much sucked at pretty much all the “cool” jock sports.  Instead doing well in things like volleyball and badminton.  Anyway, I was required to go to a transitional college to “prove” myself before I was accepted into one of our universities.  So while in this school I studied the same subjects and got the same credits that would transfer to my future university, just that I would be eased into university life.

While there, I became a fan of MUDS (Multi User Dungeons).  Lets not just say a fan.  I became addicted.  In the beginning yes, things were interesting, even though it was just some colored text that would scroll up the screen.  I think what was most attractive was that it had grinding RPG elements tied to a social activity.  It was here I had my first MUD crush, as you would call it.  Meeting a girl (I hoped), and talking about more interesting things outside of the MUDDING environment was very much a high.  Of course I eventually met other guys that filled me in on her not being up front about a lot of things and treating all guys the same way, so I was not her special “one.”

Then there is the official trading of photos.  And of course you will see what you expect; it is not Megan Fox on the other side.  Megan and the other hot girls are out with the guys that used to beat the crap out of you in school.  You my friend, have reached the all time low of trying to build a relationship with someone you haven’t seen or met in person in an online environment.  Eventually things did not work out and we went our separate ways.  But alas this was not the death of my mudding days.  The nail in my mudding coffin was from a Miller Lite (Beer) model.

I was the top student in my Elementary Evolutionary Ecology (Say that three times fast.) class.  One day a really beautiful girl from class came up to me.  She had jet-black hair and mesmerizing blue eyes.  She asked if I could tutor her in the class.  Of course I’m living with my parents still so no way to ever get her to come to my place, so every day after class we sat and studied together in the school dining hall.  Anyway, long story short, she got a B in the class and came the last day in the lab to thank me personally.  I being the idiot that I was, did not realize that she wasn’t just thanking me, but wanting to “thank me,” by saying maybe we can hang out sometime.  I of course being so into my game said, “sure no problem, sounds cool, talks to you later.”  I blew her off!  So she said bye and left.

Immediately all of the other guys in the lab stood up in unison and said you are a #$%*ing idiot!  That girl was hitting on you and you were too dumb to notice.  I froze, replaying everything in slow motion, analyzing every word.  They were right; I just threw away my chance with being with the hottest girl I had ever met in my life (Of course not as beautiful as my wife who is probably reading this; checking up on me.)!  I said, maybe I should go after her?  They said No!  It is too late, you #$%*ed it up, there is no going back.  I agreed, and sat down staring at the colored words going up my screen.  They no longer held my interest and became colored words again, like they always had been, and my days of mudding had come to an end.