Do you ever think about how people play games to escape yet...

[Melorie]

It's all well and good until there is a disagreement about some rl "things" and suddenly the one on the wrong side of the discussion has to make the call if they need to stay silent or double down on what they feel and pray that what they say doesn't infringe the open ended nature that is the ToS. Personally, I would stay quiet in those moments because my personal opinions are not worth losing/getting a mark on my account, lol.

That seems to be a very personal experience. Usually if I'm playing with someone and getting access to their worldviews to the point that it's over my limits I just decrease the contact slowly. It's not a big deal.

Eh I made a lot of "acquaintances" over the years, but I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm trying to make friends. We talk about a lot of crap outside of the games. And guess what, the groups that filter the content to stuffs that we mutually enjoy, and make sure we don't burden each other with our own real life issue - are the group that last. There is an implicit understanding that we're all here to have fun, I'm not here to carry your burden neither I expect you to carry mine. That's why we're gaming groups and not bands of BFFs. Groups that does not respect that boundaries ... well, tend to have a much shorter life span.

The friends that I have in RL, they're very different.

I don't really see how talking about your life or daily things isn't "having fun" or sharing a burden. Talking about non-gaming stuff shouldn't be about giving people a burden. No one enjoys having someone dropping their entire life on you all of sudden, but if I'm playing a game every week and interacting with a particular group, then eventually we get more intimate.

Anyway, I never had "gaming groups", I had people that I meet in-game and that turned out to be my friends eventually. We talk about the game and talk about ourselves and our lives. I probably have a few people around that I do content it with eventually but it is 500x more fun if I'm doing it with people that know me and I'm actually friends with. Most of the people that I tend to do just content with are honestly bland or forgettable for me.

I don't see games as some sort of "escape" where my life doesn't exist and I should just focus on having fun. It's just a hobby that's also part of my life. That's why I don't understand most of the time why people come up with these "I play game as a escape"... Because escape is not the same as having fun, which is not the same as forgetting about your own life or your day imo.
But, different folks with different strokes. Thank you for answering does, I guess it makes sense for some.