The whole ordeal began about three months ago, when F started hitting the streets of the internet. At first it was isolated to small rural communities, thrilled at the fact that someone was making a game about hard working Americans, rather than a game about having sex with hookers and then murdering them afterwards. But in less than a few weeks people from the suburbs and cities started playing it, tantalized by a quick, rewarding high in the form of fake money and fictional farm labor experience.
Farmville is a simple enough game. You play the role of a farmer with fully customizable clothes, gender, and controversially, race. Too many times have I heard someone say, "check it out, my black farmer is growing watermelon and cotton!" Despicable. Your goal is to make as much money as you can by planting crops, milking cows, collecting nuts from trees, and other various farm related economic endeavors. The harvest times directly mimic that of real life: Short term crops like strawberries take about 4 hours until you can harvest them, and more long term crops like wheat can take up to three days.
There are two types of currency; Coins which are given during a harvest and spent on basic farm items, and farm cash given in small amounts over long periods of time to buy things like artistically colored barns and fuel for tractors. Sadly enough real money can be exchanged for either of these forms of false, valueless currency. Fortunately I never sunk so low as to actually spend my real money on farm cash. Probably because I don't really have any. I hit a much different rock bottom.
My addiction to F started as most addictions do; Peer pressure. A couple of girls who I thought were my friends, already lost in a F addicted haze, began persistently sending 'gifts' to me, free farm items that could be kept and utilized, or sold for a small profit. I denied every one of these gifts, and my reaction to the games concept was like anyone elses:
"WHO IN THEIR RIGHT FUCKING MIND WOULD PLAY SOME PIECE OF SHIT GAME WHERE THEY PRETEND TO BE SOME STUPID ASS FARMER! I MIGHT AS WELL PLAY A GAME CALLED "FACTORY MANAGER MAYHEM" OR "711 OWNER X-TREME!" This concept was obviously so idiotic to me that it caused me a deep sense of rage, no different to the time I heard they were making a show similar to the Bachelor, but with plus sized women and a guy who is into that sort of thing. (I was mad because I wasn't the guy)
But they wouldn't let up. It was like being in a vice grip of peer pressure. I decided I would just do it once, to see what its like, and then never do it again. Before I even realized it, I was completely hooked. Spending countless hours each day plowing, planting, and harvesting. Spending what felt like an eternity at my chalk board trying to balance my secret farmville equation to maximize my profits. I planned every day around farmville. Having to leave parties early, cutting short visits with friends, and I even missed my own wedding. Any time some one would catch me at my computer I would quickly exit the window and lie by telling them I was just looking at internet porn.
My mom eventually kicked me out, sending me to live with my Dad in rural Forest Grove, where we have no internet connection. But this did not stop me. Every day I made the 2 1/2 mile trek to the local library, where I had no more than an hour to do my business. Every day my dad was under the false impression that I was out trying to find a job. one hour, of course, was never enough. I can not even try to estimate all the money I spent and sexual favors I had to do in the library bathroom to acquire more internet time.
I am truly blessed though, because my friends and family eventually stepped in and gave me a formal intervention. I was clean for about 3 days, but I escaped and was found in a downtown library crying over my entire 20x20 plot of grapes that had been wilted for some time. After this, I decided the only thing to do was to hand cuff myself to my bed for five days strait, and let the physical withdrawal symptoms of nausea, vomiting, body shakes, and possibly death run their course. I was either going to live the rest of my life F Free, or I wasn't going to live. Period
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