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The Emokid in Holland Story
This isn't fan fiction.
This isn't even fiction.
It might qualify as "Creative Writing" though, so this strikes me as the most likely forum to post it on.
I went to a WoW Guild Meet in Holland a few weeks back, and the trip was sort of eventful for all the wrong reasons.
I told SG what happened, and he insisted I write it up and give him a copy.
So I did.
Basically this is me bitching about someone I find annoying for about 18 pages.
If that's not your thing, don't read any further. I don't mind.
If you play any MMOs and are considering meeting people from the game in real life, it might be worth a read.
Maybe.
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Alright, so this is a long story.
Even telling this story verbally, it's really long.
Having me write this story down will only make it infinitely longer, because that's just the way I write.
Longwindedly.
So anyway, I used to play World of Warcraft. From April to November of last year, but I quit when I felt it was taking up too much of my time. Back then I mostly partied with my friend V, and often went to his house to steal his broadband internet, since my connection sucked. I also frequently partied with other
people in-game.
After I quit, V and the people I'd partied with split off from our old Guild and set up their own Guild, with them as the officers in charge.
Then August of this year, they decided it would be cool to have a "Guild Meet up" in Holland. This is where our story begins....
V wanted to go, but not unless I went too; because he hasn't ever travelled by himself, and I have. It was apparently cool with everyone that I go despite not being in the guild, because I used to be in-game friends with all the now-officers.
So it was decided that I would go and take care of all the travel requirements (ticket booking, poking V into getting a passport, and just generally knowing what to do). It was also decided we'd stay with our in-game friends from Belgium.
At a certain point though, V's friend, who is also in the guild, bolstered by the news that I'd be overseeing the hard part of travel, decided he'd like to come too.
Now I didn't know the guy too well, but he seemed okay.
My friend's friend will be henceforth referred to as "Emokid".
Consider it a portent.
Then our in-game friends realised that they had overestimated the amount of space in their house, and didn't actually have a place for us.
This could have turned out to be a problem, if not for the fact that Emokid's in-game female friend, who lives in Holland offered us a place to stay. V was a little hesitant since he didn't know her very well, but I countered that I didn't know ANYONE in the Guild excluding the four people who played 'back in my day'. So using his account I spoke with her a few times, and she seemed like a really nice person.
I also looked up the ticket prices, and while it was the initial plan that we'd only stay for the weekend of the meet, it would actually work out to be about 150 euro cheaper per person if we stayed for a full week instead. I ran this past our potential hostess, and she said that she and her husband were going on holiday immediately after the meet.
"Alright", I said, "Nevermind." It would have been extremely unreasonable to expect them to let us arse around their house for 3 or so days completely unsupervised.
"But wait", she said, "Our nephew will still be here, let me ask him if he's okay with it."
Me (to myself): "O_o No way"
"Okay" she said, "I asked him, and he said it's fine. You can stay for the week, and he'll drive you guys back to the airport to catch your flight home."
"Er, wow" I said "Thanks. That's really nice of you guys."
So with that, confident in our hosts' level of awesome, I went and booked the three tickets to Holland.
Even though travelling with Emokid violated one of my personal rules of
"Never travel abroad with anyone you don't know well"."
He was in the guild, and I'm not. Plus it was because of his cool friends that we had a place to sleep, without which we probably wouldn't have been able to afford to go at all.
Once the tickets had been booked on my credit card, and both guys paid me cash, I made a conscious effort to hang around Emokid more to get to know the guy a little better before we left. In doing so I started to notice one or two things about him that put me a little ill at ease.
Firstly he told me that himself and our our hostess were getting married "in-game".
"Huh" I said "She mentioned a husband when I was talking to her. Isn't she married?"
"Yeah" he said "He's the one marrying us."
"Hmmm" I thought to myself, "That's a little weird."
"I know her husband too in-game" he continued "They said I can come back again and visit whenever I want. We're great friends."
"Well" I said "Lets hang on and see how this trip goes first before you go planning any more."
Later I was at his flat playing Soul Calibur 3 with another guy, and Emokid was playing WoW near me. I glanced over to see what he was doing in-game. It was one of the big raid instances, I think BlackWing Lair. I also noticed that his screen was entirely filled with the pink coloured text of a whisper. Meaning he was having a back-and-forth conversation with one other person. Which is unusual, considering in a 40 man raid, you'd generally be keeping an eye on Guild chat (green text), or at least Party chat (blue). I noticed as well that the whispers contained the word "love" a lot.
"Whoh" I thought to myself "This isn't any of my business." and I refocused my attention on playing SC3.
I couldn't help but notice that for the remainder of the raid, his character was just standing there idle while he was chatting instead of healing. That's just plain bad playing.
Another time I called to his flat to drop off some One Piece DVDs, but he wasn't around, so I hung out with his younger brother, who seems like a really sound guy. At this point the PC Emokid used to play WoW (V's old PC) had died,
so his brother's PC was the only one operational in the flat at the time. He and I were just generally talking about WoW and stuff, and I was sounding like a really old man
"There's a flight path to Un'goro crater now? Back in my day, we had to fly to Tanaris, traverse the desert, and jump off a cliff. Barefoot! And we were happy about it too! Kids these days have it too damn easy!"
Eventually his brother got started on a Blackwing Lair raid, and Emokid came home, clearly lamenting the fact his PC was broken, but his brother's wasn't.
"Bro. Is V online?"
"Yeah"
"Did you tell him my PC is broken?"
"Yeah, he said he'd call up and have a look at it later."
"Ask him now."
"We're raiding now."
"Broooo, aaaaaask him!"
"Emokid! He and I are both raiding, we're a little busy."
*two minutes later*
"Did you ask V yet?"
"No Emokid, we're still fighting the same boss."
"Ask him now."
"He-said-he'll-call-up-later!"
"Can I talk to him?"
"No......we.....are.....raiding!"
"When did he say he'll call up?"
"LATER!"
This went on for about ten minutes. It reminded me of (and was just as annoying as) a child's "Are we there yet?" line of questioning. I added this event to my mental "Hmm, that ain't quite right" folder on this person I was about to go travelling with.
A few days later I called down to V to make sure he'd gotten his passport.
"Yo."
"What up?"
"Not much. Did you ever attend to Emokid's PC? He seemed pretty adamant about wanting that fixed."
V rolled his eyes "Oh for fucks sake, don't get me started."
"What?"
"I called up to fix the PC, and he was on Teamspeak (A program that lets guildies talk verbally via headphones and a mic) with our hostess."
"Oh?"
"Oh my god. He was talking such complete shite. I had to put my MP3 player on full blast in my ears so I couldn't hear the soul-sucking conversation while I was fixing the PC. But I could still hear him talking during the break between songs."
"Uh-oh?"
"He was saying such complete bollocks as 'Nobody likes me' and 'I'm not really a nice person, I just pretend to be on the internet'"
"Call me Captain Obvious, but that is NOT the sort of shit he should be saying to the people we're going staying with, especially now that we've already paid for the tickets."
"Exactly" said V "What you have to understand about Emokid is that he's a complete fucking emo who absolutely has to have attention focused on himself. If you're talking to him and say "My dog died" he'll instantly come back with "Oh yeah? My mom died", just so that YOU feel bad for him instead of yourself. Him saying he's a horrible person is just an extension of that. Trying to get attention."
I roll my eyes "Fucking wonderful. Do you think you can get him to keep a lid on that? While we still have a place to stay?"
V sighed "I dunno. Maybe I should contact our hostess just to let her know how much shit he talks. You know? Just so she's ready for it?"
I shook my head "I don't think that's a good idea. She's his friend. You said so yourself that you don't know her that well. I can't imagine she'd take too kindly to us trying to come between them."
"Yeah" he said "I guess not. I'll leave it off."
In hindsight, I think I was wrong on that one.
I then jokingly suggested that we go back down to Emokid's place and break his PC so as to limit his contact with the rest of the guild before the meet, and then made my way off home.
The day before we were due to leave soon came, and since I live really close an airport I told the lads that the best thing to do would be for me to collect them that day so we could all spend the night at my place, and then leave for our 5am flight really early. This involved me going into town to collect them, and I told them beforehand that they better fucking be ready, because if they weren't I was going to (a) Kill them (b) Go without them (or their corpses). Also that I was absolutely positively NOT accepting "but I was playing WoW" as an excuse.
Both of them seemed to be ready on time, but I noticed when throwing the bags into my car that Emokid's one was suspiciously light. Almost empty feeling. This was filed under "Not my problem" and was promptly forgotten.
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FUN EMOKID FACT #1: If you know Emokid for any amount of time, you will learn that he's a big fat guy with "a gippy back". You would know this even if you were completely blind because he makes a reference to it every couple of minutes. This may be an attempt at getting people to say "Oh no you're not fat", but I always just ignored it. Despite having an apparently bad back, he doesn't seem at all aversed to heavy lifting...
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Everything from that point onwards went like clockwork. The last night in Ireland, the airports and the flights. We arrived in Holland and were collected by our hostess's nephew; who was a great guy, and totally went above and beyond the call of duty chauffeuring us around Holland during our stay.
On the way to our hostess's place from the airport we stopped at a Shell service station to get some food. At this point we had been in the country about 40 minutes and had only seen (1) The airport (2) The highway (3) This service station. Despite this, Emokid was still talking about how awesome Holland was, and how it was superior in every possible way to Ireland.
"Pfft, noob." I thought to myself "An hour off the plane and he's already a walking Lonely Planet guidebook."
Once we resumed driving we arrived at our hostess's place in fairly short order, and met our hostess and her husband in person at last. Your expected level of slightly awkward "we've only just met" conversation ensued, but became steadily more relaxed as time went by. Whenever Emokid spoke for too long at a time, or trailed off into what was clearly bullshit, V shushed him up.
Then evening came. I decided to go off to sleep, since I was the most tired. V, Emokid, our hostess, host and their nephew decided to party up in WoW, and apparently had a great time (They have a 5 PC LAN room in their house, I was sorely tempted to reactivate my WoW account when I saw it, but I held strong).
During this time, according to V, even though everyone playing was in the same room, and within easy speaking distance, Emokid still spent the entire time in-game-whispering our hostess. Rather reminiscent of how I had seen him 'raiding' at his flat earlier. Which is quite rude, and a little creepy.
Soon after V himself went to bed, but didn't immediately sleep. While lying in bed he heard Emokid talking with our hosts and telling them that "V is a real control freak" and "he's always really mean to me".
Aside from being pissed off about being stabbed in the back by his apparent 'friend', V realised that although telling Emokid to shut up when he starts completely bullshitting was in everybody's best interests, if he did it for the entire week, he'd look like a bad guy, and everybody would be thinking "Awww, poor Emokid" by the end of the trip.
So he decided, and rightly so, "Fuck it". He wouldn't reign Emokid in anymore, and everyone would be subjected to pure, unfiltered Emokidium. Dun dun duuuuuun!
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FUN EMOKID FACT #2: The reason Emokid's bag was so light, it emerged later was because he had only packed a blanket, and not bothered to bring a single change of clothes. For seven days he slept fully dressed. Occasionally though he did take his boots off.
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So the next day in preparation for a guild barbeque, myself, V, our host and the nephew set up a buncha tents outside, and our hostess went shopping for food. Emokid went with her. When she was in the kitchen later preparing the food, Emokid went with her. When she was sitting down relaxing before the barbeque, Emokid sat with her. When she was eating at the barbeque, Emokid sat with her.
As you can probably imagine, this became a recurring theme. No matter where our hostess went, or what she did, Emokid went with her. He became her shadow. Which to be honest was preferable to him being MY shadow, because since V had stopped keeping him under control he was just constantly fucking talking. Long, drawling, boring stories about pure shite that never ever go anywhere, but never ever stop. Talking shite seemed to be as natural a state to him as 'sitting there and breathing' would be to anybody else.
The barbeque itself was awesome fun.
Although Emokid ate a "Stroopwafel" (waffle lattice soaked in syrup) covered in garlic sauce, because someone had suggested it as a bad food combination. This got him equal parts attention and rolling eyes from the guild. He also mentioned he doesn't like to eat anything unless it died a horrible screaming and painful death. The waffle was obviously an exception.
At various points, V apparently told Emokid in private to stop stalking our hostess and give her some space, but was met with the reply of "No, it's fine. She's my friend" every time. Pretty soon he gave up on that too since Emokid just wasn't listening to him, no matter how much he didn't give our poor hostess a moment to herself.
At one point V even jokingly said to her "Not so great when you can't log off is it?" to which she replied "It's too much. He's just around me too much."
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FUN EMOKID FACT #3: Emokid did not shower once. Ever. He smells exactly like hobos do. Apparently V's attempts to get him to wash himself went as follows:
Emokid: Ow my gippy back
V : If your back is sore, why don't you have a shower?
Emokid: No, the warm water will make it worse.
V : Then why not have a cold shower?
Emokid: No, the cold water will make it bad in a different way.
V : Then have a mediocre shower!
Emokid: No.
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This brings us to about day 4, which was the official guild meet day, took place at an amusement park in Holland, and involved about twenty or thirty guildies.
Since I was a complete stranger to the majority of the people there, I made an effort try to talk to everyone so that I would know everyone at least a little before the end of the day. V did too.
Emokid though?
Rather than make an effort to hang out with the members of the guild, the vast majority of whom he knew from in-game; he just stuck to our hostess like glue. THE ENTIRE DAY. We were there for over eight hours, moving around as a group of 20/30 people, and the various cliques constantly reshuffled throughout the day as people moved around and talked with different people. The one constant through all this was Emokid as our hostess's shadow.
I don't even mean he was just constantly in the same group as her. He was always BESIDE her. If after a park ride we were all standing around waiting for some of the stragglers to come out, he'd be at her shoulder. If she went to sit in the shade for a second, he'd go and sit with her, if she stood back up he'd stand up too. It was creepy.
Any attempt by V to tell Emokid how creepy it was was merely met with "No no, it's fine, I'm just talking with my friend."
We briefly stopped at a meat-vending machine to pick up some snacks. Our hosts mentioned to me that they wanted to check out a Dutch show and asked me if I wanted to come. Since it wasn't in English and because I had found a vending machine that shoots out <i>meat</i> I said I'd give it a miss but thanks anyway.
They waited until Emokid was queueing to buy himself a burger and then ducked off to go see the show without him and without telling anyone where they were going. They were gone for about an hour by themselves before meeting back up with the rest of us. At which point Emokid of course immediately latched himself back onto her.
Since Emokid was constantly talking to our hostess about his "gippy back" and how it wouldn't let him go on a rollercoaster, she, despite having an ACTUAL bad back went on one just to get away from him for a few minutes. By doing this she hurt her back even more, and is currently on pain medication. (I didn't find this out till after we got back, otherwise I would have said something)
At a certain point we all stopped at the food court for some proper vittles. After a few minutes of eating in an inexplicably pleasant atmosphere (I couldn't quite put my finger on why), our hostess turned to me and asked:
"Do you know where Emokid is?"
"He's gone?" (Oh, that explains that)
"Yeah, I told him to give me some space, and he took off. Now he's gone."
"Ugh, I guess I better go look for him."
So off I went to look for him. Not because I actually wanted to find him mind you. Believe me I didn't. Just because if he was still missing by the time everyone finished eating, then someone would probably feel sorry enough for him to get the entire guild out looking for him. I wanted to bother as few people as possible while giving Emokid the minimum amount of attention his emo-tactics could garner.
After spending a few minutes failing to locate him, I made my way back to the group.
He was there, looking all emo (long mangy hair down over his face), and hanging back at the very back of the group, away from our hostess, and not talking to anyone else. A full blown sulk.
I made an attempt at being cordial.
"Hey man, you okay?"
"What? Yeah. Fine. Everything's fine."
"........."
"........."
"Right then." I went back socialising.
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FUN EMOKID FACT #4: Periodically, and for no discernable reason whatsoever, Emokid will sniff loudly. Like someone would clear their nose, but he had no cold or allergy to speak of. The sniffing sometimes morphed into a kind of whistle when his mustache hair got caught in the updraft. He did this anywhere up to three times a minute. The "sniff" cannot accurately be reproduced in text form, but trust me, it was goddamn annoying.
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This state of sulking went on for about an hour. I did my best to keep my eye on him without actually talking to him. At one point he tried to slip off again, so I grabbed V by the arm and dragged him to follow. V at this point was really fucking irritated with the guy, and said he was going to kill him.
V ended up just telling him that
"There are a lot of people here, you should try hanging around with a few more of them", to which Emokid replied
"Yeah, I'm hanging out with everyone. I just wanted to watch this thing over here for a second."
".........."
".........."
"So you coming back to the group?"
"Yeah yeah."
"Alright, don't go wandering off again."
I said nothing during this entire conversation. I was waiting for V to really tear into him, but he never did.
Emokid continued being emo for the remainder of the day, but at a certain point I saw him and our hostess hugging, which I presumed meant that they were now on good terms with each other.
"Cool" I thought to myself "Now he knows to lay off the creepy, and will give her some space."
.....
I guess that makes me an optimist.
I never knew I was an optimist before.
For the car ride back, Emokid was in our car, which he had not been for the ride TO the funpark. Since he and our hostess had made up, he was back to his old self, talking absolutely non-stop. I much prefered him when he was sulking; at least then it was quiet.
One example of his never ending stories goes as follows (quoted verbatim):
*someone mentions their grandmother*
"Oh yeah....I don't get along very well with my granny........this one time..........she was on the phone to my brother....... and she was all like "Hey Emokid's Bro"........and he was like "Hey"..... and she said "So has Emokid cut his hair?"........and he was like "No".....so she she said "Tell him I'm very disappointed in him"......and he was like "Okay"......so then later..... my bro goes to me "Hey Emokid"........and I'm like "What?" .....and he says "Granny said she's
very disappointed in you"...and I'm like "Blegh" *shrugs shoulders* "I don't care."....
That one alone probably went on for about ten minutes. The trip back with Emokid in the car felt about four fucking times longer.
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FUN Emokid FACT #5: Emokid is an example of what I call someone who lives in a "Bubble reality". Something I have only ever come across once before. This is a fake personal reality through which no shred of ACTUAL reality can penetrate. People telling him to "Shut the fuck up and stop talking" are changed, via the magical haze of the bubble to people saying "Wow. What an interesting and funny story. Please, continue talking." Or "Stop stalking that girl" becomes "I think she likes you. Stalk her more!" And finally, people rolling their eyes and sighing magically become masses of people screaming "We love you Emokid!"
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The next day we were all chilling around the house. Myself and V introduced everybody to the joys of hand-held gaming, in the form of three Nintendo DSs and a shitload of games.
Everyone was trying games out and hanging around the sitting room. Gradually though, people began disappearing upstairs to go play WoW; until I realised that the sole occupants of the room were myself sprawled on a couch, our hostess lying on the other couch next to mine, and Emokid off on the other side of the room. Not doing anything. Just sitting there watching us.
Our hostess seemed to be enjoying herself playing WarioWare: Touched and didn't show signs of stopping anytime soon. Based on my past observations of Emokid, I thought it might be a good idea if I hung around so they wouldn't be alone, so I decided to stay where I was until one of them left. Then I'd be free to go do my own thing.
I think that went on for about an hour. I sort of forgot Emokid was even there, because he was skulking in his own dark corner on the far side of the room. Not saying or doing anything. Just watching.
After about 20 solid minutes of trying, I finally managed to beat V's high score in "Mewtroid", and I left the couch to run quickly upstairs to gloat.
"Ahaha, I beat your Mewtroid score!"
"Shit. Did you beat my Cyclone kick score?"
"No... damn it. I'll do that now."
I ran back downstairs. The entire conversation couldn't have taken more than 15 seconds. In that time though, Emokid had moved from his corner to my couch, and was sitting so he was just looming over our hostess's shoulder, watching her play.
I thought that was fairly fucking weird in itself, and tried to 'politely' kick him off the couch with my feet. When that didn't take, I just elected to sit there playing my game, but watching Emokid over the top of my DS.
He just sat there, watching her.
Eventually our hostess got bored of whatever she was playing, and decided to head upstairs to play some WoW. Emokid of course followed her there. I figured since everyone in the house excluding me was now playing WoW in the same room, I didn't need to supervise any longer. I stretched out fully on the couch and began to enjoy the quiet.
Which didn't last long.
A few minutes later, Emokid came storming down the stairs, swept past me and went out the back door in what was clearly a bad mood. I idly wondered what his problem was, but mostly I didn't care. So I went back to what I was doing.
Soon afterwards our hostess came down the stairs.
Looking around she asked me "Is he gone?"
"Yeah" I said, vaguely gesturing towards the door "He went out that way in a huff."
She looked at me seriously "I don't ever want to be left alone with him."
"I figured." I said "That's why I was hanging around down here while you were playing games."
"Yeah" she said "But while you were gone for a bit, he tried to grab my breasts."
"WHAT?"
"Yeah he was like 'Ho ho, this'll throw you off your game' and I said 'NO! DON'T!'"
I was flabbergasted.
"Jesus I'm really sorry. If I had any idea he was this much of creep before we came I would have absolutely refused to bring him."
"It's alright" she said "It's not your fault, but I really don't want to ever be left alone with him anymore."
"That's perfectly understandable" I said "And you won't be left alone with him again."
She nodded and went back upstairs.
I just sat there amazed.
15 fucking seconds! I couldn't have been gone for longer than that, and in that time he managed to try to fondle her.
The guy may be a fucking moron with absolutely no idea how reality works; but if he DIDN'T think doing something like that was wrong, then why the hell did he wait until I'd stepped out of the room to do it?
I was livid. Fuming. I was going to fucking kill him.
So I set up myself up in the sitting room where I had a clear view of the back door for when he came back and played Super Princess Peach while glowering (not an easy thing to do mind you, that's a pretty chirpy game).
After about an hour or so, the back door clicked open, and in walked Emokid, looking emo as always.
"Hey Dude" he said "What's up?"
I rounded on him. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"Uh..." he stammered "What?"
"SIT THE FUCK DOWN. NOW!"
He sat.
"YOU. TRIED. TO. GRAB. HER. BREAST!" I hissed.
"Oh..." he said.
"I mean honestly, what fucking world do you live in that you thought that was okay?"
"I was only messing" he said lamely.
"Messing? After you spent 4 solid fucking days stalking the poor woman. After she told you at the fun park to leave her alone. YOU TRIED TO GRAB HER BREAST?"
"She didn't tell me to leave her alone, I went off by myself because I wanted to see...."
"BULLSHIT. Don't fucking lie to me, I'm not in the mood."
"Oh well" he said,"Nothing bothers me anyway, so it doesn't matter."
"No" I said "That's me. I'M the guy that doesn't get bothered, and you're the emo one. Despite that you're still managing to bother me. A lot."
"Oh well" he said "I guess that's just my way then. I either care too much, or I don't care at all. I'm just one extreme or the other. I have no middle ground."
"Jesus Christ" I said "If I knew you were this much of a retard I would have absolutely refused to bring you. I did not travel to Holland to fucking babysit YOU."
"You don't need to babysit me." he protested.
"Yes I fucking do" I laughed disbelievingly "I certainly can't leave you by yourself around her."
"Yeah you can." he said "I promise I won't do anything."
"I don't care what you promise me."
"Oh" he bristled "Are you saying you don't trust me?"
I laughed in disbelief again. How could anyone be so totally absent from reality?
"Of course I don't fucking trust you!" I said "You've done nothing but give me reasons NOT to trust you."
"Well that's fine" he said, irritated "I'm used to that. Nobody's trusted me my entire life."
"Jesus Christ I DON'T CARE. I don't care about you. I don't care if you've had a shitty life. I don't care if you were raped by puppies as a child. The only reason I'm even talking to you now is that I like the people we're staying with. I'm very grateful they let us stay here, and I don't believe they deserve to be subjected to you."
"They're my friends too" he said lamely.
"Well Emokid, I can't speak for them, but as far as I can tell, they aren't your fucking friends anymore. That ship has sailed. You can't just go from having someone be afraid to be left alone with you and then go right back to being pals. The world doesn't fucking work like that."
This entire time Emokid was very careful about avoiding eye contact and fiddling with his phone, because looking me in the eye probably would have resulted in instant death at that point. Petrification at the very least.
During a lull in my half-hour long tirade, V came down the stairs, unaware of the tense atmosphere.
"Hey guys, anyone fancy a cup of tea?" he said.
"Yes" I said.
"No" said Emokid.
Silence.
"Seriously!" I resumed, talking to Emokid "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
V blinked surprise. His mind assessed the situation.
"Oh" you could see him thinking "We're doing this already? Good."
"Yeah" V chimed in "What the hell is going on in your head?"
From that point onwards verbally shredding Emokid became a tag-team affair. With tea.
After a while, V turned the conversation onto his own concerns with Emokid, which predated our trip to Holland. Such as how he always sulks to get attention, or will try and make people who are down feel more sorry for him than they are for themselves.
Since I didn't really know him before the trip, I didn't feel the current conversation was relevant to me. My aim wasn't to remake Emokid into a better person, my only goal was to keep him under control for the remainder of the trip, and then wash my hands of the fucker as soon as we got home. (I mentioned "washing my hands" of him a lot over the course of the week.)
So I took a break and went upstairs to the WoW room to drink my tea.
Everyone turned to look at me expectantly. I guess some of my loud raging had floated up the stairs.
I told them that I had "Had a word with him", and that even though he clearly knows I am very angry with him, I don't believe he really sees that he has done anything wrong. I told them as well that I was again, really really sorry for his behaviour and that I'd be making absolutely sure to keep an eye on him until it was time for us to go.
I also asked our host why the hell he hadn't beaten the shit out of Emokid himself yet, because he easily could have.
He explained to me that he WOULD have, if Emokid's attempted breast-grabbing had resulted in actual grabbing. Then Emokid would have been flat out on his ass on the street.
I think maybe as well they were a little uncomfortable with "dealing with" a guest, especially since in their mind it might have soured their relationship with all us Irish lads. I can understand that, but it wouldn't have been true at all. I imagine if anyone did at any point physically beat Emokid, myself and V would have high-fived and done a happy dance. Maybe even a full blow jig.
Soon enough though, I was finished my tea. I figured I had better return to the fold. So I mentally cracked my knuckles and headed back downstairs to resume what I started.
V's verbal assault had apparently run fully through Emokid's past problems and come back to the present, so I was able to jump back in easily.
".... and it's so irritating when you go off by yourself to sulk, hoping someone will come after you and give you attention!" V was clearly on a roll.
"I don't sulk to get attention" countered Emokid "If I wanted attention, I'd just cut myself."
"Even if you DID cut yourself" said V "Nobody would give a shit!"
"Whoh" I thought to myself "Nice."
"You're ruining the trip for everyone" V said a little later on.
"I'm not ruining anything for everyone" Emokid said dismissively "You guys are ruining it for yourself."
"Fuck you Emokid." I said, murderous rage building.
"Alright" said Emokid at one point "I think maybe I'm a manic depressive. My mom is. My brother is. My mom took some medicine that really sorted her out. Maybe if I take it too I'll be better."
"That's bullshit!" said V.
"Now hang on," I said "Maybe it isn't."
"You can't just fix what's wrong with you with chemicals Emokid" V continued "You need therapy or something."
"Wait" I said "It's entirely possible you may be a manic depressive Emokid, and if you think pills will help you I highly recommend you seek them out and get them."
He nodded.
"However" I continued "Regardless of whether or not these pills can help you, that doesn't matter for now. We're only in this country a few more days, and there's no way you're going to get a check-up and prescription in that time. This is something for you to pursue after we get back home. But UNTIL that time you need to chill the fuck out, stop hounding our hostess and stay away from her until we go back home. That's all you can do for now."
After that, the angry conversation wound down, and eventually V and Emokid started discussing WoW.
"Alright guys" I said, standing up "I'm in no mood to talk about Warcraft, I'm going to bed."
"Night" they both said.
"Emokid" I said, pointing my finger at him "Just so we're clear, you and I are NOT okay. Don't think that because the conversation has turned amicable that everything is fine. There is just a limit on how angry I can be with someone in one day."
"Don't worry" he said "I'm sure I'll do something to make you angry tomorrow."
"Die in a fire" I said, and went to bed.
V continued talking with Emokid in my absence, and apparently got him to admit that our hostess wasn't just "his friend" and that in actuality he was obsessed with the woman. I don't think anyone is particularly surprised by that revelation though.
Later I had a talk with V where I was pressing the point that even though neither of us wanted anything to do with the guy, since we had brought him here, WE were responsible. He was our fault. And as such it fell to us to keep him away from everyone else for the time remaining. He agreed, despite the fact that this meant spending time with Emokid, one of the highest forms of cruel and unusual punishment.
The next morning Emokid awoke first, and wandered downstairs. His departure woke me, so I groggily slipped out of bed and followed him. Making sure at absolutely all times that I could see what he was doing. I ate a bowl of cereal, chatted with our host and hostess, all the while keeping an eye on Emokid.
Later on V woke up too and wandered downstairs.
"Hey, who ate the last of the cereal?"
"Me" I said "Since I got up to watch Emokid, and left you sleep."
"Oh" he said "Fair trade I guess."
Now that V was awake and watching Emokid too, I slipped back off to have a shower and get dressed. Once I was ready I declared that I was going for a walk. V said he was coming too. We both turned to Emokid and said
"You are coming."
So we wandered around. Emokid's company was as painful as ever. But it was either that or inflict him on others. At one point we stopped at an ice-cream shop, and I bought an ice-cream wafer and a purple can of Fanta (every country seems to have a random assortment of different Fanta colours). While chilling and eating my stuff, a wasp began circling me. So I killed it, and resumed eating.
"Oh my god" Emokid said "I hate people who kill wasps. I hope you die in a car crash when we get home, it would serve you right!"
I shrugged and continued eating.
"Emokid. What. The. Fuck." said V "What the hell is your problem?"
"V man" I said "Chill. I couldn't care less what he says."
"Well I fucking care" he continued "You don't just tell people you hope they die. Least of all your friends."
I was going to interject at this point that Emokid was HIS friend, not mine; but he seemed to be on a roll, and I didn't want to disturb it.
"I think it's wrong to kill wasps" he said, a little lamely.
"Well Jesus Christ" said V "At the barbeque you were constantly saying to everyone 'If what I'm eating didn't suffer and scream when it died, I don't want to eat it'; and then you turn around now and hope your friend dies over a wasp. If you're going to be a retard, at least be consistent about it."
Emokid stopped talking and looked sad.
In my mind, I chuckled.
On the way back to the house we stopped off by the river to chill.
Before leaving Ireland Emokid had been constantly talking about how he loved rivers and shit when he heard our hosts lived near one, and that he'd spend every waking moment hanging out at it.
In reality he had spent every waking moment in our hostess's shadow, and this was his first time at the river.
We thought he might appreciate it a little, after all his talk.
"I need to go to the loo" he said, and took off back towards the house before any of us could object.
"V" I said.
"I don't fucking care."
"V, we can't leave him by himself."
"I don't fucking care."
"He's gonna go straight back to the house and perch on her shoulder."
"I don't fucking care. I wish he'd just go and die."
"Fine. I'll go back, you stay here; but you are totally getting custody tomorrow!"
Sure enough, back at the house Emokid went straight to where ever our hostess was (playing WoW) and started looking over her shoulder. I was going to tell him to piss off when she asked him what he thought of her new talent build in the game.
If she was willing to engage him in actual conversation, that was sort of out of my hands. So I sat in the room and figured that when they stopped discussing the game I'd tell him to go away.
I soon heard "Hey is that so-and-so? Send him a whisper and tell him I said hi!" which meant that our hostess was just playing WoW regularly now, and he hadn't pissed off.
"Say Emokid" I said, trying to be polite "Look there's a load of free PCs on THIS side of the room, why don't you log in under your own character and whisper those people yourself."
"No no" he said "It's fine." and remained where he was.
I didn't want to get really angry in front of our hostess, so I waited a few minutes and then said
"Hey Emokid, look at all these free PCs, why don't you log into one and see if anyone has e-mailed you."
"No no" he said "It's fine."
Urge to kill rising.
"Hey Emokid" I tried again "Aren't you making the dinner today?"
"Yeah" he said.
"When are you making it?" I asked.
"Oh" he said "Whenever someone's hungry."
"I'm hungry" I said immediately "Starving even. Go make dinner now."
"What?"
"Yeah, absolutely famished. Get cracking."
He looked from our hostess to the door a few times, but relented and slinked off to make dinner.
It was a while before V came back. Apparently once he was free of the constant state of irritation that is Emokid, the sudden onset of peace and quiet made him fall asleep next to the river.
That night Emokid went to sleep early, which was awesome because that meant I got the rest of the night off. We watched Shaolin Soccer in his absence, which was fantastically funny and enjoyable. A sort of "anti-Emokid" if you will.
The next day was the day our hosts were to leave to go on their holiday, leaving us alone in the house with their nephew. I was really looking forward to it, despite the fact they were both awesome, and I really enjoyed hanging out with them; but the second our hostess was gone, I could stop watching Emokid. I like time to myself, I think I might actually need it to keep my sanity, and forcing myself to constantly be around someone I found so infinitely annoying was really getting to me.
We all said our goodbyes, and when Emokid said to them "I'll talk to you guys online", you could see everyone in the room look at him with an expression of complete bemusement.
If I could read minds I'd imagine everyone was thinking
"We never want to talk to you again you freak!"
Whereas Emokid was probably thinking "La de da de da! Everyone loves me! *images of monkeys grooming each other*"
Without our hostess around, I had no further reason to watch Emokid, so I stayed the hell away from him.
Periodically V would catch him fiddling with his phone and ask "Who are you texting? It better not be our hostess!"
To which Emokid would reply "No no, I'm texting my brother."
----------------
FUN Emokid FACT #6: It turned out later he was texting her the entire time.
----------------
The remaining days and the trip back passed uneventfully (i.e. Nobody was sexually assaulted). Emokid made a couple of attempts at being friendly with me, by saying things like
"Hey, when we get back home you need to teach me how to play Donkey Konga"
or
"You totally need to come to my next birthday, it'll be great fun!" to which I only ever replied
"No, that's not going to happen."
I just wanted to get him as far as Dublin airport and then wash my hands of the fucker. Because at least at Dublin he would officially cease to be my problem. If we lost him at Amsterdam airport he could still have conceivably made his way back to our hosts place.
Upon arriving in Dublin I felt as if a tremendous smelly weight had been lifted from my shoulders. We immediately ditched Emokid and got some dinner by ourselves. I also totally got the greatest chocolate chip muffin I have ever tasted. It looked like an atomic mushroom cloud of deliciousness. This isn't relevant to story in any way, but I felt you should know. That was a awesome muffin.
Even though we ditched him, Emokid still managed to find his way to the departure area by himself, and we all flew back to our local airport.
From there I drove both the lads straight back into town.
Once we were close enough to his flat, Emokid saw all the people putting up lights and decorations for the festival and said "Oh, back with all the scum."
At that point V cracked and said "WHAT FUCKING SCUM? All I see is happy people putting up lights. SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
"Easy V' I said "Nearly there."
We stopped outside his house, and I opened the boot of my car and handed him his bag (with the blanket in it).
"So" he said "Do I owe you money for diesel or something?"
"No Emokid" I said "Good bye." I put as much emphasis on the 'bye' as I could.
Then I dropped V home, and the story really should have ended there.
Ahahaha.
So anyway, in online Guild drama, V as an officer told Emokid that he was leaving the guild. Either voluntarily or by being kicked but it would be preferable that he left voluntarily, since if he was kicked V would have to explain to the rest of the guild WHY exactly, and he didn't fancy telling that story.
So V in essence asked for his resignation.
Emokid then continued his emo-tastic ways online by sitting at the feet of his former guildies, and constantly doing the "/cry" emote.
He even respecced to Moonkin so he could look even sadder than normal while crying.
(Moonkin being a larg pathetic looking Owl/Bear monster)
-------------
FUN EMOKID FACT #7: I noticed I neglected to mention how old Emokid is exactly. He's almost 23. How old did YOU think he was?
-------------
After kicking him, the Guild officers went around to various girls who had left the guild and asked them
"Hey, we don't want to sound like we're being nosy about your personal business, but was the reason you left the guild because Emokid was hassling you in a creepy manner?"
"Yes."
"Oh right. Well he's gone now, wanna come back?"
"Yeah awesome!"
At least two girls had left the guild because of him. One even completely abandoned her main character and played an anonymous alt instead.
Apparently his stalker-ish behaviour was not an isolated incident, it just never carried over to the real world before.
Emokid's current WoW playing machine was V's old PC, which he donated to Emokid long before we went to Holland. I had been saying to V through the entire trip that he should totally take the PC back and stop Emokid for bugging anymore girls online.
In fact, if he ever wanted to do it, all he had to do was call me, and my car would be there at his disposal in a flash.
After we had been back about a week, I was talking to V, who had been talking to Emokid's brother (cool guy).
"So" V said to me "When Emokid got back he apparently told his brother that he had 'gone too far' with our hostess."
"Wow" I said "That's huge. He understands he did something wrong? He's poking his head out of his bubble reality and seeing the real world."
"Ah, not so fast" said V "That only lasted a few days apparently. After being back a full week he has apparently regressed to 'everybody was just out to get me' mode, and regards the entire thing as being everyone else's fault."
"Oh" I said.
"Especially you apparently." said V.
"Huh. Wait. What? Me?" I stammered.
"Yes, apparently you were hitting on our hostess so relentlessly he felt the need to cockblock you, and was really only valiantly defending her from you."
"......"
"Oh indeed, and me too. Remember when we went to the fun park all squeezed into two cars? Emokid felt that by letting her sit on my lap, I was making unwanted advances towards her. He thinks it would have been better for everyone involved if she had sat on HIS lap instead."
"Please be joking."
"Nope."
"So in his twisted little world, I'm the bad guy? I'm the super villain responsible for all his woes?"
"Yep."
"But....like......I mean......seriously..."
"I know. I know. But wait there's more!"
"Oh Jesus no. Not more."
"Yes, he sent our hostess a message to her phone just the other day which said 'Come on TeamSpeak and talk to me. But don't tell anyone. They don't want us to be together.'"
"Nobody wants them to be together?"
"Yup."
"Including, HER husband, and more importantly HER!"
"That would seem to be the case."
I was walking around in stunned disbelief for the rest of the day.
It also emerged that Emokid has asked his mother if she thought he needed anti-depression medication. She said no, so he didn't bother pursueing that option. So much for that.
These events drew to a close when I got a message late from V one night calling me on my word.
"Remember what you said about helping me move the PC?"
"Yeah"
"We're doing that now."
"Now? But it's like 3am. I'm in my pyjamas."
"He's doing it again. He's hassling other girls from the guild, and telling them not to listen to anything our hostess tells them since she's 'just jealous he rejected her'."
".......I'll be there in 20 minutes."
So I drove up to Emokid's flat and we took away the PC. There wasn't really much to write about there. V chided him for his behaviour, Emokid denied everything. Everyone was very passive. I was waiting for some angry swearing before I'd jump into the conversation, but it didn't happen, so I just stayed quiet.
Back at V's place, he put the kitchen tap running for me, and told me to "Wash my hands" of Emokid, as I had been constantly saying I would throughout the entire trip. I did. It felt GOOD.
So that's pretty much it. By taking away the PC, I've done pretty much everything within my power to keep Emokid from hassling girls online. Anything else is beyond my control.
Another friend of mine pointed out that stories like this never actually end, people like this don't change, you just hit a cut-off point where you stop caring.
That point is exactly here.
Last edited by Vyers; 11-10-2006 at 07:32 PM.
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It's funny to think that someone as clueless as Emokid really, really exists...
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