DotA

As far as I can recollect, I started playing DotA when I was still in the pre-university phase of my life.

There's a bunch of hot hunks from Jit Sin High School who're all DotA freaks. Well, I guess what kindled my interest in playing the game was self-explanatory. When you're a teenager, your peers have a colossal influence on what you do because you want to fit in and not be the social outcast everyone shuns. I even played futsal with them. However, it's a harrowing experience. I must admit that ' atheletic ' is not exactly an adjective I'd describe myself with.

Nevertheless, playing DotA has inconceivably become one of my most favourite pastimes at present. It's not just the game or the ecstasy you experience when you kill an enemy with skills and tactics that develop only after years of practice for noobs like me. Or the recuperative powers it promises after an exhausting examination week. Apart from the indisputable fact that it's the cheapest entertainment you can ever get, it fosters good relationships between my friends and I.

Similar to most guys in general, I'm just another colonial animal incapable of functioning well socially on a solitary basis. The complications that invariably arose in my history of befriending straight guys necessitate no further explanations here. Therefore, DotA, to me, is the equivalent of a friendship lubricant which has played a crucial role in helping me establish a good rapport with my friends in university. Friends whom I can walk with in pride, sending an implicit message to others that we're a group of buddies indispensable from one another. Furthermore, it has also helped me reconnect with my old friends.

Playing DotA is somewhat analogous to drug intoxication. You can momentarily forget about the abysmal fact that you just gained a pound or that the hunk you've been stalking online is officially ignoring you. You become engulfed in euphoria and rapture. On top of that, you feel a deep sense of togetherness and comradeship which stems from the team work that naturally exists among your teammates when the game is going on.

Thanks to DotA and Garena, I've become a regular patron of cybercafes. We can literally spend a century in them, especially those with an interior similar to that of a spaceship. One thing I like about cybercafes is the sight of thuggish twinks with ear studs, tattoos and ludicrously dyed hair, often heard yelling at one another with profanities.

The exciting thing is, many of them are appallingly hunky and hot. Which is the part that totally trumps my fear for my unnecessary exposure to passive smoking that increases my risk of suffering from bronchial carcinoma.

Gang fights are not uncommon. As risible and infantile it may sound, a defeat or loss in a virtual war can fuel anger and dissatisfaction strong enough to induce a gang fight. I personally witnessed one in a  a cybercafe in Genting Klang a few months back. One from which Keng and I almost suffered collateral damage from had we not fled in time.

May the game always be in vogue.