Recently I posted a rebuttal to this list of signs that you’re addicted to Diablo 2. The list, while a good effort, was complete unmitigated horseshit, mainly because the people who wrote it were simply making stuff up. For example, most of the contributors have never been president of America, and I am insulted that they attempt to claim as much. I am not a child.

So I am going to write my own list of signs that you’re addicted to games, but the big difference with mine is that every entry will be based on my own personal experience; and since I only decided to make this list a week ago, all of the evidence will be from the last seven days. Nothing made up here; oh no. This list is going to fact the shit out of you.

You know you’re addicted to computer games when…

10. You watch a TV program about gibbons.

It is 8pm. You sit down with your burrito omelette and cheap Bohemian lager, and begin to flick idly through the channels. Nothing grabs your attention, but then who should appear but David Attenborough, swamped up to his neck in a writhing morass of gibbons! You bear a great respect for this seasoned television personality, and soon you are lost in contemplation as you gaze at African mangrove monkeys patiently tapping molluscs against tree trunks, and tiny marmosets seizing grasshoppers in the high rainforest canopy.

Feeling guilty? You should. You just proved that you’re addicted to computer games.

9. You cook food featuring harissa paste.

You’ve never bought this aromatic mix of chilli, spices and rose petals before, because each jar has a four-week edibility window and you have no idea what to do with the stuff. But this week, you bought a jar anyway. Why did you do that?

Several days later, you are reaping the dark rewards of your impulse purchase. The warm harissa and egg salad was delicious; almost too delicious. And yesterday, you roasted a chicken after stuffing its skin with harissa and crushed garlic, then your whole family sat around and ate it, like some kind of pagan eating ritual, except using plates and cutlery and basic table manners.

Is there no end to your addiction? Just sit back and think for a minute. How different would your life have been, had you never discovered harissa paste and, by extension, computer games? So different it almost sodomizes the imagination.

8. Your favourite shoes are beginning to fall apart.

This is a classic sign, but it takes a clever man to spot it. Next time you’re putting your shoes on, try turning one of them upside down. Now look at the sole. Does it seem strangely worn, as if by constant friction? I thought so. This is a very serious situation, and it could ultimately result in you throwing those shoes away. And what else will you throw away, before this is all over? The Radiohead t-shirt that shrank in the wash? A broken plate? Your life?

Yeah, it’s pretty scary when you think about it in those terms. Now step slowly back from the edge and walk away. If you don’t look back, you might still be ok.

7. You find yourself enjoying the works of Gustav Holst.

It is a quiet Sunday afternoon. You relax on your bed, the rousing strains of Jupiter circling around your head, stirring the deep pools of beauty inside your heart. Before too long, your imagination soars away from this prison of flesh we call a body, to dance alone in the great void, lit by the twinkling stars. Foolishly, you have been listening to the music of Gustav Holst, a man known almost entirely for his Planet Suite. Holst’s other works are now largely ignored, making him something of a one-hit wonder.

Do you understand now? One hit. That’s all you crave nowadays, isn’t it.

You are a disgrace to your parents.

6. There is a dramatic sea-change in your masturbation style.

It always used to be socks. But now it’s old boxer shorts. Why would you change now, man? You’ve developed a style through years of practice, and only something deeply traumatic would disrupt that. What’s wrong with socks anyway? Why don’t they caress your tender heart in the way they used to? Everyone knows boxer shorts are just cheap sluts; everyone but you, it seems. You used to be better than this. What changed?

So many unanswered questions; questions that weave around your boxer shorts like a bafflingly enigmatic spiderweb. And you know what lurks at the centre of a spider’s web, don’t you.

That’s right. Computer Games.

5. You cannot decide whether you would hump Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer if you were gay.

One is the Spanish hunk with the heart of gold. The other looks like Quentin Tarantino if he was hot and wore cardigans. Both are such fine specimens of manhood that it’s impossible to decide between them, and it’s tearing you apart. You’re not a big screaming fagmosexual, but if you were, would you spread your legs for Nadal’s raw, athletic masculinity, or be bent over by Federer’s smooth charm?

It’s a choice everyone has to make in the end, but not you. Oh no, you just sit on the fence, like you always have. This is why you’ll never find the strength in your soul to give up games.

And get that thought out of your head. You don’t deserve a gay three-way.

4. You accidentally drop your book, but pick it up on exactly the same page you were reading.

Have you ever studied the arcane art of Coincidence? Some say there is no such thing. Others say different stuff. But one thing everyone agrees on: randomly opening a book to the exact page you were just reading is definitely a coincidence. And it has just happened to you.

But there’s more. Picking up the book, you notice that you have for several weeks been reading The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, and it dawns on you that The Orchid Thief is an anagram of something disturbingly relevant to your addiction. Just rearrange those letters a few places, and you end up with a supernaturally accurate summary of a life wasted by games. I’m sure you’ve worked out what it is by now. Ready? Ok, say it with me.

CHIEF HOD HITTER.

I believe this point has been made.

3. Your breakfast muesli tastes like raw porridge.

I mean, it should taste like raw porridge; after all, muesli is nothing but porridge oats with a few chunks of random miscellany hefted in. However, today, it tastes an absolute arseload like raw porridge; much more so than usual, in fact. For any sane, rational mind, this is a clear cause for panic.

Logically there can be only two explanations for this. The first is that computer games have reached their final stage of addiction and are now affecting your very taste buds, causing food to turn to ashes in your mouth. The only food you crave now is pixel food, served on an LCD plate at taste resolutions of 1280×960 upwards. Washed down with gameplay.

The second is that you have changed your brand of muesli, which is in fact what you have done. However, we can safely disregard this possibility.

2. You need a piss at 3AM.

What is it about three in the morning that activates your slash gland? Every night this week, you’ve stumbled from your bed with an awkward, ungainly boner, and sat in frustrated silence while you wait for it to subside so that you can get some blessed relief. Why is this happening? You’re not drinking any more water than usual, and you go to the toilet three times before you turn out the light anyway, though you acknowledge this is a bit weird and you should probably stop.

So why this sudden bout of erect desperation in the darkest hour of the morning? To understand, one must know a little of biology. When one is addicted to something (let’s say, for the sake of argument, computer games), one’s body simultaneously hates it and craves it. In this instance, your body is trying to flush the addiction out of your system via the medium of urine. However, it also lusts after the very same addiction, hence your vast, bulbous Game Erection.

Tragically, this problem will stay with you for the rest of your life. This may not be a comfort to you, but hopefully it will be a lesson to others.

Don’t do games, kids. They’ll only make you piss.

1. You murder more than your usual number of swans.

As you’re doubtless aware, there is only so much time in the day in which one can slaughter waterfowl. The morning is out, because you need time to get ready for work and don’t want to get blood and feathers on your uniform. After work, you just want to go home and zone out in front of the TV. So, realistically, there’s only a small window after dinner and before bedtime when you’re feeling refreshed enough for a spot of swan killing. It’s understandable that you’ll only manage eight or nine per week, and no one thinks any less of you for that.

So why, last week, did you murder over seventy-six of the buggers? Was it the massive amounts of PCP you ingested? Or was it games?

There’s no way for science to know. But your heart knows, and that is a much more reliable indicator in today’s cold modern age.

Filed under: Blog-exclusive humour, Comedy Stuff