One of the other reasons why playing Final Fantasy XIII has been therapeutic to my mind is that I don’t have to be online to play it. I don’t have to read the idiocy that is part and parcel of World of Warcraft’s Trade Chat, where racism, homophobia, and misogyny are frequent features. I don’t feel the need to Command-Tab over to some social media site and read about atheists bashing Christians, Ayn Rand-inspired insanity, and people jumping all over other people who happen to react viscerally to racist terms, even when they realize it’s being used ironically, and not in a malicious manner at all. Instead, all I have to do is watch the pretty animation and mash on a limited number of buttons.

I realize that the Internet is susceptible to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory and even though a lot of people use their real names on social media sites, clearly it isn’t in-real-life. Face-to-face, where you can actually see people’s body language and pick up on their paralinguistic cues (assuming you don’t have an autistic spectrum disorder), certain conversations might go differently. The only problem is that I have had these discussions in in-real-life—often with family members—and they don’t really turn out any better.

Maybe I really am a masochist.

But I’m not out to win any Nobel Peace Prizes here, so it is what it is, if I can’t change it, so be it.