We’re both in our 30s.
There is a competitive online game I play and have played on and off for a few years. For a long time, nobody else I knew played this game so I would just play by myself or with people I met in lobbies. I would occasionally talk about the game with my friends, but not super frequently as I knew nobody else was interested.
A couple weeks ago my friend Marco mentioned he’d be playing this same game with his friends Garret and Anthony. When I asked like how long he’d been playing and about his play style, he said he’d been playing for a couple weeks just casually with his other friends. I was stoked to play together sometime and said as much. We planned a day and played together last week.
The other day I’m online and I see Marco is online, and I mention that I had installed the game on PC so we could play ranked together (I had been on console, and when we tried we were unable to do cross-platform). He says we’ll have to play anther time because he has gaming planned with a Garret and Anthony. I thought maybe they had planned to play a different game and he was about to log off, but then I see he’s still there all night just playing unranked matches.
This hurt my feelings! Why wouldn’t he invite me to play with the group? I’m not friends with Marco and Anthony, but we’ve met before a few times and got along fine. I was really disappointed because I was looking forward to having another friend who plays this game.
I don’t know whether or not to bring it up. If he doesn’t want me as part of this gaming group, I don’t want to push the issue, but Marco and I have been friends for over ten years. He has always had a thing about not introducing his friends to his other friends due to anxiety, and usually I don’t really care but this is such an easy situation to just ask sometime to join the group. It’s not like there are major skill differences, when we played together things were going fine. And as far as I know there is no beef or tension between me and his other friends.
We’ve been friends for years, were roommates before for short periods of time, have gone on trips together. It just feels really bad, but bringing it up would feel like pathetic almost. Isn’t it normal to invite friends to join in when you know people have mutual interests? Especially something that takes no real effort like online gaming?
I’ve seen him playing a few other times since then too. I feel weird asking him to play because it seems like he doesn’t really want to, and that maybe it’s something I accidentally pressured him into. He didn’t bring up the game on his own, I had asked him about his plans and he brought it up. But it feels bad to think that he wouldn’t want to, as well.
Edit: for clarity, I am NOT good at this game. I play for a few months each year and then put it down. When we played together, he was slightly better than me.
I’m going to throw this idea into the mix. It’s how I’d handle the situation and it’s generally worked pretty well for me. Ideally you’d send a message like this when your friend is online and playing but it really doesn’t matter when you send it.
“Hey mate, just noticed you and x and y are online. Mind if I jump in for a bit? Be great to have a game or two”
Nice and relaxed, no pressure, no coming off as needy. There’s the possibility he’ll say it’s not the right time or they’re working on something together - that’s fine too, at least you know why. If you join in just play a game or two unless you really feel your gelling with them. Whether you stick around or drop out follow it up with.
“Good game guys, thanks for letting me drop in.”
The next time they’re online it’ll be easier for them to include you or you to ask to be in again.