I’m admitting it. Send me to the 12-step program. Have all my family and friends get together and stage an intervention, put me on that TLC show “My Strange Addiction,” because this has gotten out of control.
No, I’m not talking about alcohol or drugs, or any other grave type of addiction. Mine might be far more serious: I have an addiction to playing Words with Friends.
What was Facebook used for besides updating all of my thirteen games at once? Because honestly, I’m not sure.
It all started when my fellow colleagues on The Equinox started playing the game on their smartphones. Naturally, because of my overwhelming need to be competitive, I had to join in too.
As I’m sure all of you already know, Words with Friends is an application on your phone which is a digitized Scrabble board. I used to play the traditional Scrabble when I was a kid, cursing my father for playing words like “toxic” or “jets” while I was struggling with a bunch of one point words and finally resigning to play “cat” for a measly three points.
Now, with a heartier vocabulary and a new sense of competition, I started playing Words with Friends with the arrogant notion that I was going to beat whoever I played.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Foolishly setting up people for a triple word or giving my opponent the opportunity to place an “X” on a triple letter were some of my greatest downfalls, but I was not going to concede defeat.
The inner competitive 10-year-old boy on the playground was going to come out strong.
The more and more I played, the better at the game I became.
Granted, there are still some people who could beat me by 100 points every game, but it’s now gotten to the point where I’m playing upwards of fifteen games at a time, several of them with the same person.
I’ve roped my other colleagues, my friends, and even my grandfather into this.
It’s with a vicious sense of pride that I see my letters, notice I have a “Q” and a “U” and someone’s set up a nice spot for me to play QUADS on a triple letter and on a triple word, and lie in wait for my opponent to get a twenty point word while I have a 108 point whopper on my hands.
The adrenaline rush of a back and forth game is exhilarating, if not incredibly dorky at the same time. I take pride in the fact I have beaten one friend eight times out of the last 10 games.
I’ve been consistently playing three separate games with my grandfather, and I’m still recruiting other people to challenge my Words with Friends supremacy.
My addiction has grown so bad that I blacklisted my boyfriend from playing me, because he’s played made up words like “DOXIE” on a triple letter and essentially won the game with his ability to place random letters together to form a word he never knew existed.
It’s not the first time a fierce debate has been brought up about the ethics of using this type of strategy to win a game.
Maybe it’s for the better that I stop playing Words with Friends so much and move onto another game that intellectually challenges me, but it’s simply too much fun.
I’m constantly checking my phone and Facebook in order to play a word.
I regularly talk trash to the people who are trying to beat me to no avail, and I’m quietly losing to those who can conquer me.
I suppose that with all the stress that comes with balancing academics, a social life, a job, as well as being part of an athletic team, a little Words with Friends might be a healthy way of letting off a little steam after an incredibly busy day.
We all find little things that help the day go better, whether it be working out at the gym, watching TV, or hanging out with friends.
We all need a little bit of escapism. For me, I guess, the best way to relieve my stress is harassing everyone I’m conducting a game of Words with Friends to play a word constantly.
It feeds my competitive nature, and it gives me a chance to step away from my reality and concentrate on making sure that my X can be placed on that triple letter tile.
Whitney Cyr can be contacted at wcyr@keene-equinox.com