Page 45 of Don't Hate the Player
“Em, that was two days ago.” He seems surprised I brought it up.
Dilemma: how do I explain that I’m a massive coward who was scared of admitting that I did a bad, mean thing without sounding like a massive coward who does bad, mean things?
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. “I mean, no, I wasn’t right then because it was really sticky and stuff, but I’m fine now. I showered.” He pauses, more to catch his breath than to think about what he’s actually saying. “I didn’t, like, only shower then; that wasn’t my only shower. I shower every day, so it’s not like that was my one shower and I’m done for the week.”
From the cadence of his speech, Jake’s in ramble mode. I’d stop him, but I find it oddly charming. He talks the way I think, nonstop and always trying to cover every possible interpretation of whatever he’s going to say.
“I was more asking if you were okay, like, emotionally.”
“Oh. Yeah. Once it was over, nobody really noticed. Perks of being invisible.”
“That’s not—”
A trumpet interrupts whatever dumb thing I was about to say. We’re up for the freestyle map. I hadn’t planned on playing much longer tonight, but now that I’m in, I can’t help but feel the same flutter in my chest I get whenever I’m up inGLO. Right as Pharaoh spawns in front of the cathedral—and, look, it really is all made of crystal—I flag him for combat, just in case I want a little target practice while I try to get through to Jake.
“Hold that thought. Where did you spawn?” I ask.
“West side, in the gardens.”
“Coming to you.”
The late-night crowd is mostly role-players with very few people toggled for combat, so it’s a piece of cake to keep Pharaoh moving through clouds of fog and remain unharmed as I make my way toward Jake’s Pythia. The map is dominated by the cathedral in the center—like most things inGLO, it’s a bizarre architectural combination of gothic spires and glowing alien tech, with buzzing blue screens in the place of stained glass windows and suspicious surveillance droids instead of gargoyles. In front of the church is a stone plaza where a few players are mingling—Lucafonts and Envys dressed in last year’s spring fever skins, Munes and Hyves wielding the Diamond-tier editions of their standard weapons—but Jake’s coordinates place him to the west, in what looks like a hedge maze when I zoom out on my minimap. Pharaoh fits right in as I half run, half hop down the stairs and move toward the coordinates on my map.
When I finally see “[JHOOPS]” hovering above a player, I can’t contain my laugh to a volume-controlled snort. His Pythia is wearing a cross between a nurse’s outfit and a clown suit, complete with a big red nose and a jaunty candy striper’s uniform. It’s an exclusive from way back in the game’s day-one patch, when all the healers got sillyPatch Adamsoutfits to celebrate the launch.
“Sweet Christmas. You look ridiculous,” I say as our characters link up. A reddish tint on the side of my screen indicates an enemy nearby who’s probably confused as to why two combat-flagged players aren’t tearing each other to pieces, but I spin my camera and slam a crossbow bolt into their shield as a warning. Not now, twerp.
“Nice shot. Your mummy looks like an Oscar,” Jake says as the other player turns tail.
“Thank you. It’s fashion.”
“You were going to say something before?” he says.
Was I? Playing around with Jake for a few minutes put me in an entirely different headspace to the stressed-out, anxious garbage brain I’ve toted around all week. Wait, I remember. “Why do you think you’re invisible?”
I hear a creak, like Jake is closing a squeaky door or moving around in a seriously dilapidated chair. I can almost picture him rubbing his neck out of habit, messing up the way his hair falls in the back.
“There’s this cool maze thing here; want to check it out?”
Sure, I’ll walk the maze. I follow Pythia’s lead around the fountain and toggle my character to slow-walk alongside Jake as the purple alien hedgerows rustle with animated life. This is a good map. The maze will make PVP even more interesting, especially if the devs hide the payload somewhere in the middle.
“The invisible thing is nothing,” Jake says after a long pause. “I mean,youknow. It’s part of your thing. And it’s fine, by the way. The thing is totally cool with me.”
“My thing?”
“The thing. You don’t notice me, I don’t talk to you, nobody at school finds out you’re a Diamond-tier necromummy, and sometimes youGLOchat me in the middle of the night. Your very normal thing.”
When you put it like that, it does sound cold and one-sided, which makes me feel a little defensive. I don’twantto ignore Jake; Ihaveto ignore him. Even if it’s functionally the same thing, I would hope that my intent matters a little bit. Then again, if I look at what happened on Monday from his perspective, I don’t think any intention could have excused it. Of course Jake thinks I don’t think about him—how was he supposed to assume anything else?
“Jake, you know I notice you, right?”
“Mm?”
“You said you don’t talk to me and I don’t notice you. That’s not . . . that’s not the thing.”
He makes a “hm” noise, and I don’t know if it’s a skeptical “hm” or a thoughtful “hm.” My deep, irritating need to clarify—to have him understand exactly where I’m coming from—brushes up against the fact that I have absolutely no idea where I’m coming from.
“Just because we can’t talk doesn’t mean I pretend you’re invisible.”
