Spending early childhood in the 80's had some great advantages from a young male point of view. These advantages were Atari, Nintendo, Sega, & Neo-Geo. Video Games. Yep the make-up of my brain was left right left right up up down down a b a b select start (a cheat code for some of you that were not blessed with NES or the game Contra). I enjoyed all sorts of games growing up. Focusing more on the sports genre titles as I got into High School. I know what you may be thinking about now, "I thought we were reading about how you met the love of your life?", and believe me - you are. No the love of my life isn't a video game named Samara, but interestingly enough Samara too
In 2000 I lived in Texas (Garden Valley) and a friend of mine showed me a video game called Half-Life. It's a game he played after work on occasion and did so using his computer. Once I got my hands on this game we were immediately planning all sorts of parties and strategy involving this game. This game changed my life - probably cutting it in Half by playing it all the time... convinced Valve gaming had accurately named the title. By 2001 I was good and getting better each weekend. Over the next few years I moved from TX back home to WI then onto AZ with a longtime friend growing up. He too was a 'gamer' but more casual, more disciplined to real life responsibilities. Often times he challenged me to 'grow-up', not with words but with his actions. At times I played follow-the-leader, doing other things with my time, but I consistently would find myself in a competition of some sort proving my skill on the virtual battlefield. This virtual battlefield over the years took new forms and developed new identities and is now known as Counter-Strike: Source. Some may know what I'm talking about, as it's now one of the best known Multi-player 'shooter' games available worldwide. I played against anyone that challenged, often times getting anyone to fill out the other 4 spots on the team. I was that confident in my 'skill' it didn't matter who was on my team... I'd win often times on my own. I didn't always play that way though, my official team was assembled from equally skilled men all over the U.S. - and we loved waging war in the virtual arena.
Late in 2003 I began playing on random servers (places online in which games were being played), trying to learn little things from every opponent. This is when one player really caught my eye... Aly. Aly was a 'gamer' for sure, but a girl gamer more importantly. She hung in there too. Rarely intimidated. So I made it a goal to 'shut her down' and show the skillz I'd developed over the years. Now is a good time to laugh. Please get it out of your system now. Because she made a complete fool of me in about 2 seconds. All gamers with experience in CS know the most humiliating thing to have happen while playing is to be "knifed". Let me explain... the knife is the most crude weapon in the game, the 'last resort', and can be difficult to use. It's difficulty is not because of game complexity, it's quite simple really... you're charging at your enemy with a knife and everyone else has guns, Big guns, the odds are you'll be shot and killed before you reach the enemy. Not Aly (Samara), she knew just when and where to pop out and shank me. Always. Perfect almost every time. It was in that frustration that urged me to talk to her more. Initially, because I needed to know her secret. But as we talked the game was less and less important, I had found someone I could talk to on a normal, real life level.
The End of the Beginning.... Stay tuned for more. (How the love of my life, Changed my life)
Written by: Kyle Hart
