Do you believe in Magic?

Here is my post about Magic the Gathering.  Here within lies the tale of my relationship to the illustrious game we know today as simply: Magic.

I'm not sure when I first encountered Magic the Gathering but it must have been around 1996. Every time I would walk into a record store or a comic book shop a display would be up. I was unsure of how to play or where to begin. My friend Irma ended up purchasing a Duel Deck type of box so I right away went over to play. She lost the directions and couldn't really tell me how to play so I just looked at the cards and thought they were so cool and wished I could know how to play.

As the years went by I always looked at the Magic section of comic shops sadly because I knew I had no one to play with. 7th, 8th, 9th grade went by... everyone I brought up the game to did not want to play it so I just forgot about it.

Let us fast forward 10+ years into the future. My cousin Adam, an avid Yugioh player, tried to get me into Yugioh with him. I said "Well let's play Magic. Since I don't know the game and you don't know the game maybe we can learn together and it can be fun?" His response was "No, lets play Yugioh" and so we did. No lie it took me close to 2 years to be able to understand the dynamics of play in a way I felt comfortable playing people other than my cousin. The game of Yugioh is unnecessarily complex requiring the edict of some Japanese lawyer to decipher it's complexities.

And it got boring for me after a while. I got a gift card to a local game shop as a gift and instead of buying Yugioh stuff I bought a Magic 2013 Deck Builder's Kit and along with it some green sleeves and a deck box with a really creepy guy's face on it. When I picked out the deck box the shop clerk of The Gamers Gambit in Saddlebrook, NJ said to me "Ah, the Diabolic Tutor". To me he really did look diabolic as fuck.

I was right away intrigued and smitten by these cards, I was ready to play. I ask Adam if he wanted to play and he says "No". I went to my brother in law and we started playing but when he knew how hard it would be he also said 'No". I asked my friend Andrew to play and he was not at all interested, The cards sat, collecting dust. At my job I asked every work friend I had "hey want to play magic with me" they all said no. I came to realize how a mass of people are when it comes to being asked to play Magic. For most people it's: "Uh, you're a fucking geek.. I'm not a geek like you, I will never play that because I am cool and most certainly not a geek who plays card games. But thanks for asking, YOU GEEK". Or its the ever famous: "Yeah... no. I have no idea what the game is about or what it entails but I am not interested because I genuinely don't care about things I don't already know about."

Eventually I was able to finagle my brother in law to play with me again. We had fun doing it, but were both such sore losers it wasn't always the greatest scenario. I had to always show him what cards to put in his deck, research his deck, I basically built his decks then when he would win he would GLOAT and lure it over my head. He would buy boosters to increase the chances of pulling cards I wanted just so he could put the point across that he is superior. Did he know what any of the cards did or what their value was? No, he just wanted to make me feel like shit.

But unfortunately I am back to my old spot, completely devoid of anyone to play magic with. I sent my internet girlfriend a deck I put my heart and soul into building because I wanted so much for her to be my Magic partner. I wanted her to love the game, I gave her the most powerful deck I could muster with amazing cards, 2 THOUGHTSEIZE!!!! But it collects dust somewhere in her closet. She's not interested. She said she would play with me but not because she wants to learn the game and play, but just out of pity for me.

So thus defines my struggles as the loneliest Magic the Gathering player on earth.

And before you say "Go to a game shop on Magic night, Put yourself out there!!" to that I say I don't drive and I live in a basement up a gigantic windy road of trees and I feel like a captive.

The End.