Haven't had a lot to write about lately, at least not when it comes to stuff that have happened in my life. I mean, sure, there has been stuff going on, but nothing I really feel like its interesting to write about. I do have two different posts in progress, though, with some rather serious themes, but I'm not quite satisfied with either of them yet.
There's one thing I want to write about right now, though, one thing that I feel have sort of separated the group of friends I belong to. I visited a friend this week who is on the same side of things as I am, we started talking a bit about it, and we both would really see that it would change somehow.
I am, of course, talking about LANs, and LANers. For years I have considered myself a part of rather close group of LANers, that used to meet almost every weekend to play computer games and just have a good time. Unfortunately, as time goes by and people get older, start having relationships, have other more important things happening in their lives, and friends drift apart for one reason or other, it gets harder to find the time and opportunities to do this.
All of this is understandable, and can't really be helped. What I think is very sad, however, is how what's left of the LAN-community that I consider myself to be a part of seems to have been divided during the last couple of years. We used to get together everyone of us, as often as possible, but now it seems a few of us have been more or less left out.
On one side we have the social LANers, which I consider myself to be. We are the kind of LANers that go to LANs not only to play games, but to get together with friends and just have a good time, whether in a game or not. We're a rather small group, I can only think of three, maybe four, of us in the area at the moment, that I also consider part of the "good old" group of LANers.
On the other side we have the gamer-LANers. The ones that want to do more or less nothing but play games when on a LAN, and that seems to only want other gamer-LANers on a LAN. While I can understand that in a way, it ruins it for the rest of us who consistently gets left out.
If only someone had a place for everyone to gather this wouldn't have been a problem, but as the situation is at the moment, none of us social LANers have a place where we can arrange LANs. I would have loved to arrange LANs at my place again, it is certainly big enough, but... I lack proper furniture, plain and simple. And the other social LANers don't have places where it is possible to arrange anything either. The only ones who have places to arrange LANs atm are the gamer-LANers, which means that those of us who wants more out of a LAN than just playing games 24/7 have been left out for quite a while now.
I'm not out to force anyone to invite people they don't want to invite. People are free to do with their own LANs as they please, and if they really don't want to invite me, that's their choice. But being left out time after time after time, that really doesn't feel good...
I miss the old LAN-days... I really do.