Now look, irl I am a very shy, reserved, slightly below average looking guy. I can talk to people, but I'm not the kind of person who hangs out with people socially. I've gone on the occasional dinner get-together with coworkers a few times, but that's the extent of it. My free time usually goes straight to my bedroom playing games or working on various creative projects that I never finish.

When I started playing FFXIV, I got really excited to make new friends because, as I thought at the time, I was about to hang out with my kind of people; the people who like to stay at home and play video games. And this was sort of my gateway to meeting people who were like me; alone and not very social but want to meet people, so they play an mmo.