Sometime this summer Wesley started playing PokémonGo again. We both played for awhile when it first launched in 2016 but he stopped and so did I after less than a year. I don’t remember why exactly why I stopped, but I know it was around the time where you could battle with other players and my social anxiety got me really stressed out about this game suddenly pitting me against someone in real life and I didn’t really understand how it all worked and so that was about the time I stopped playing.
Let me give you a little background information about me and games: I don’t play them.
Like…I’m just not a game person. Not a computer game person, not a console game person, not a board game or card game person. It’s not like I’m anti-games, it’s just not something that has ever really grabbed my interest. I think part of it is because I have negative competitiveness. Like…I don’t want to win because I don’t like seeing other people sad to lose. I also get really bored with most games. Put me with a board game and I lose interest in about 10 minutes.
So me being into the PokémonGo game at all was pretty impressive. Even though I ended up putting it down after awhile.
But when Wes started playing again this summer I re-downloaded it and started playing again so that he and I would have something to do together and I remember that I really did enjoy it.
See, the thing with that game is that it totally speaks to the collector in me. I love collecting things and really, that’s what this game is all about. AND, you are rewarded for walking around places, which I love to do. Yes, there are battles and raids and ways to advance with “fighting” but really, it’s a game about walking around and catching Pokémon. So as a collector and a walker it is the PERFECT game for me.
But…I was four years behind. A lot had changed in the game in four years so Wes had to get me up to speed in a lot of areas. First, he had to teach me about fighting which – it turns out – was not like I thought it was. You’re not really fighting other people directly, basically you’re fighting the game. There are ways to be more aggressive with other local players but not in any way that I thought it was happening before. But most importantly? You don’t really have to do any fighting if you don’t want. I do it sometimes because the game gives you challenges and some of them involve battles, but it’s not that often and it’s never been really difficult to do by myself.
But the cool part that I didn’t think would still happen is that I still notice people out the wild playing! Especially if it’s an event day and I’m at a popular Pokémon spot. You see, there are places all over town where you can spin Pokéstops for supplies and those “gyms” are in interested areas like monuments or murals or parks. So some parts of your town (like our historical cemetery and our downtown area) will have higher concentration and so you’ll see a lot of other people walking around playing. So then you feel like you’re part of a cool group of secret gamers!
So I got back into it, especially because it motivates me for daily walks around historic cemetery at the edge of my neighborhood. I go walk around there almost every day which guarantees I get outdoors and moving a little bit. Of course, now Wesley has abandoned the game and I’m on my own. But I thought I’d write about it here in case any of you are interested in being my PokémonGo friend! When we’re friends I can send you gifts! And maybe you’ll get into it too!
I’m posting my referral code here if you’ve never played before and want to start. If you do that also email me (misszoot@gmail.com) if you start playing and I’ll answer any questions you might have. It’s overwhelming at first but if I’m ever confused I just google stuff! It’s all over.
If you already play here is my friend code! Let’s be friends!
