Labyrinth of the Mind

I have mentioned my obsession with GTA RP. Anyone new here…it is Grand Theft Auto Role Play. It sounds silly when I write it all out. It has been my escape for some months now. I realized something about this game yesterday and it was such a weird thought that I almost dismissed it, but I couldn’t let the thought go.

I have not had a lot of relationships in my life…romantic ones. The ones I did have were full of venom and lies. They were so unhealthy and toxic and…abusive. I was put through the ringer for those relationships in my quest to find the great love little me promised older me would find. My love life has been tragic and traumatic.

In GTA RP I have a boyfriend. Well…my character has a boyfriend. My character is a lot of me, just not bound by society and moral standards. She is me but more unhinged than I could get away with in real life. And her boyfriend is exactly the kind of boyfriend I would need in real life. He is very much grounded and levelheaded. He is calm and logical. While my character is going around stabbing locals (NPCs) and licking things that she should not be licking…like cops car windows and dead bodies. Like I said…she is unhinged. Her boyfriend is a cop and she is almost a criminal but never does anything bad enough to be arrested for. Stabbing the locals doesn’t count as they are just filler for the game city and not real players.

This boyfriend has seen my character at her craziest. He loves her for all her crazy antics.

This fake relationship has healed something that my real-life romantic relationships broke. I noticed it when I thought of someone and didn’t instantly recoil from his memory. I kind of smiled because this fake relationship has helped me move on and see what a real and healthy relationship could and should be. He has shown me love, affection, and trust.

I think the relationship between these two characters are the thing I will miss the most when this server shuts down and I am no longer in the city.

I feel like the game has served its purpose. It gave me a new perspective on relationships and has restored my hope for one day finding a real love like that. If this character can be like that, I am sure that the person behind that character has similar traits. We all bring a little of ourselves to these characters when we role play in these games. Even if he is nothing like his character, he at least knows how a relationship should work.

The important part is that through this whole ordeal, a piece of me has been healed. My heart has been mended by this relationship that only exist in a virtual city that can be taken from me any day. The city and the game play may disappear, but the lessons will not. The healing does not go away.

A game healed a broken part of me.