Sim Life: a Modern Barbie to Help Me Avoid Reality

I played 4.5 hours of Sim3 today alone. Yesterday was a bit more productive, I only played for 3.

In this 8-hour chunk, I hosted two weddings, one child birth, and witnessed three of my prodigies get imaginary raises at their imaginary jobs. A Sim has never died under my watch and I am close to achieving my biggest hirrah yet: in three more Sim-days ALL six of my Sims will have achieved their Lifetime Wishes. I, on the other hand, am exactly one step FARTHER from achieving my own Lifetime Wish: I did not get the job for Writer Assistant-ship ("assistantship," by the way non-employer, is NOT a word!). And yet, I feel a small sense of achievement even in this wake of professional failure.

http://www.thesimshub.com/the-sims-3/console/the-sims-3-ps3/

What is it, you may ask, that causes me to push my own life-tasks to the side and play with virtual dolls? It's a coping method I've used since childhood.

I don't like to fail. For a long time, I was able to either avoid failure or to avoid my failures to be public. Academic or "adult-noted" failure, I should correct. Socially, I have been failing for years. There was even a time I lied so successfully about portions of my life to my everyday peers that I had to quit my jobs and move to avoid finishing my death shroud. At the end of it, I vowed never to lie so big again. And I've kept my promise and returned to socially inept. 

For social satisfaction I go, as I did as a young girl with few friends, to my dolls and their perfectly color-coordinated reality where interaction is almost always successful. 

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/61011/the-sims-3/images/the-sims-3-20100520002203727.html

My husband made an acute, as always, observation today: in the total time spent playing Sims over the past two days, I could have written a complete story or revised something ready for publication. And I could have, it's true, but not without risk of failure. With Sims, I'm just one re-load away from a redo. With Sims, I puppet my dolls to love and hate and forgive all in five minutes. With Sims, I cannot fail. 

And so, I'm one more job away from my dream of writing without want of comfort. And 7.5 hours older with nothing tangible to show. But at least I'll still go to my dead-end job tomorrow. I've staved off total despair by disappearing for a day into a world I can control. Too bad all I've got to show for it is 100,000 simolean dollars and head empty of stories. Ugh.