Some People Can Be Cruel


I don’t get much downtime.  So, one of the things I like is to play games on Xbox Live late at night.  I have some people on my list I have played with for a long time; including a handful with which I became pretty well acquainted.  There were two in particular that became fairly close.  We shared lots of things on email as well as xbox.  We had long discussions, tried to comfort each other when needed, and just were “friends”.  Something was going on with the two quite some time ago which I took as being disrespectful to me; and I ceased contact with them for awhile.  Then, we started playing together again, probably over the last year or so.  I’ve always thought of them as good people.  The one female in particular, I thought was especially nice, moral, etcetera.

There are a few people that when I see them come online, I send a quick note saying something like, “Hi, how are you?”  I am more likely to do it with the ones I get responses from most of the time.  Even when we aren’t playing together, maybe because I’m already in a group or they are playing a game type I don’t like so much; I still will send the note. 

So, 3 or 4 nights ago, the one female was online when I got on, so I sent the typical note.  She typically is upbeat, kind, easy going.  Just nice.  She answered back something like, “Tired, depressed, weary, lost.  Glad you asked???”  Before I even got a chance to read it and was responding, she had gone “offline”.  I sent back a note asking what was wrong.  Because she had gone offline, I went to the computer to look up an email address for her, hoping one was still good.  I found 2 and sent her a note saying that I was still glad I asked and if she needed to talk, I would listen.  I received no responses to any of the notes. 

Because it was so out of character, I thought something was really wrong with her.  I was concerned.  The “lost” in particular made me think something bad: maybe her husband died or was really sick, her son, or any of a myriad of different possibilities. She didn’t show online for several days and I got no response.  I happened to see her husband online after that, so I presumed it wasn’t something like him dying.  I didn’t even allow the possibility, because of thinking of her as a good person, that she was just being hateful with her response when I asked how she was.  Until a couple of days later.  But, I still didn’t want to think so.

So, last night, I went online and the two from the group were both on.  I checked for message from her and there were none.  From their statuses, I could see that she and the man were both in the same game.  They were at the dashboard, went into a game when I came on, went back out of the game, and she went offline.  Then, he went into a game.  A minute later, I joined his game session…. and she was still online playing with him. 

I don’t understand it. I don’t know what happened; why she decided to be mean and hateful. But, the whole situation was cruel.  I was concerned that something really bad had happened to her or her family.  And it was all just her being cruel to me for some reason.  I’m baffled.  It was hurtful.  And it bothers me.