Feeling Frustrated Yet? (06/07/2006 12:01)

I think i may be starting to take this game a little too seriously.

For me, I came across this game towards the end of its first season. I was looking for the internet equivalent of a game i remember playing as a youth - a Play-by-mail management game - but free(ish) because i am tightfisted. I liked the interface, i liked that there was game every 12 hours and i liked that i could happily play this at work as it would not take up too much of my time each day. Maybe 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minute after the 2pm (for those of us in the UK) game and little more. Good, a little distraction for me from Office work. 

Unfortunately, it would appear that, after ten months, i find myself all consumed by this. I have so far managed to get 7 other people from my office interested, one in particular completely engrossed like me, to the point where work is 15 minutes of a distraction from the game. I imagine i am not alone in this. 

But this is not all - two games a day are not enough for me anymore, i become impatient when i sit down at five to two, and keep hitting the general tab to refresh the page, waiting for the result to roll in. I have been known to go into the tables page and flick back and forth across the leagues to see where the game-engine has got up to. It is becoming all consuming. We have conversations about the various merits of our players, discuss scenarios for how we might get promoted or avoid relegation. But even worse, I have found myself considering if, by dropping an underperforming striker, i may in some way, be hurting his feelings and he may never play well for me again, out of spite! I think i may actually be loosing my grip!

The frustration is building in me now. My team, once again has slumped back in the chase for promotion. We're quick out of the blocks, but tail off towards the end. Yet with four games to go, there are only two points between me and the team in first place. And what can i do about it? I want to go in there and give my players a complete rollocking, throw some teacups and kick some boots about. I need to impart to them how much this means to me, how for 10 seasons I have built this squad up to the best the club has seen, how the weight of expectation of 25000 fans who fill the stadium each week is to see their team ascend to previousy unreached heights. They need me to lead them to the division title, because they know, and i know too, that we're pretty crap at the playoffs, and as we all know the best way to do that is through a mixture of carrot and stick. Encouragement and threats. 

But what can i do? At this point, it's out of my hands. I am frustrated because it looks like, once again, we're going to fall short, and what i need, in all honesty, to dispell my frustrations, is a button in the training page that simply has the word "Hairdryer" written on it. That is all. May come in handy every so often to be able to yell at your players.

Like i said before, i may have taken this too far now, losing grip on what this is. It is after all, as they always say, only a game, but there is part of me, a very small, fairly weird and slightly pitiful part of me that in a very very tiny way has trouble understanding that this isn't actually real. That part of me believes that these games actually take place, has given personalities to his players, know which ones have tempers, which ones need to stay off the sauce and which ones can take the game by the scruff of the neck. That part of me knows the faithful 25000 expects more of this team. That part of me knows my team has old rivals, bitter ones who have put one over us in the past. That part of me is worryingly close to taking control of the rest of me at this point, towards the close of the season. And it's that part of me getting worse as the seasons continue to roll by, that is frustrated that he can't get at his players and slap them across the back of the heads when they throw away yet another one-nil lead in the 85th minute.

Frustrated? I couldn't be more frustrated if this was a real team i was actually managing in the real world, because at least then i'd be getting paid for it! Maybe this will subside in the week long lull before the beginning of the next season. Maybe that part of me will  calm down just a little, to allow me to develop realationships again with real people. I do hope so. Spending 20 minutes telling a stranger in a bar all about how you think your goalkeeper is lacking in confidence due to surpressed memories and a previous history of emotional problems, but asking him about it may make things worse and, lets face it, your second choice is not really any good, then to have to tell them that it's an internet game is not good for your sanity. It's becoming too much. I think i need to chill out for a little while, maybe have a lie down, maybe take the phone of the hook so Alan Agent will quit ringing me with under strength offers for my 17 year old superstar. I hate Alan Agent, he's so smug with his "I suggest you take a look at it right now" crap.

No Alan, i'm on a break right now, i'll call you back.