That’s what my stupid frigging friends think. You see, we play this game Call of Duty over our LAN. It is a war game where you, as a soldier, have to kill other soldiers (which are basically the other members of the game). Now, all of the players here believe in the ‘open’ style of the game. They run around and fire indiscriminately at whoever they can see with their light machine guns. And that is the way they play it.

I, on the other hand, like to play the wait-and-watch game. I wait with a rifle in one spot, and as soon as I can see a soldier (who can’t see me most of the time), I fix my aim and fire. If I’m accurate enough, the bullet hits his head and he’s done. But if I miss, I lose the stealth factor and become highly vulnerable, because a rifle has a painstakingly slow rate of fire. Between two shots of my rifle, an opponent can fire twenty rounds from a machine gun. Initially, I used to get shot most of the time.

But now, my skill has increased, and I’m more accurate. So I now kill more. This, according to my friends, is wrong, because I kill from hiding. A defensive game is illegal. They don’t take into account the dashes I make across the fields to get into cover armed with a weak rifle. The only thing they can see is that I kill more and die less. So that is wrong because I create an obstruction to their style of play. So I’m kicked from the game via voting every time my score reaches an appreciable number. Although the objective of the game is simply to “kill other players”, I’m wrong because I don’t follow convention.

Same is the case in life. If you achieve anything your peers couldn’t, you’ll be branded as cunning, opportunistic, and maybe even a gigolo/whore. Just because you got something they could not. If they don’t do that, you’ll be accepted as better, and that cannot happen. Last year, when one of our seniors was appointed by a leading industry major, the procedure was described to be unfair, just because he had low grades (he was selected for his superior communication skills). Because he achieved something out of others’ reach, he must be defamed.

I’m not one who gives a damn to any such idiotic tendencies. Minions will always rant at your success; the dogs will always bark. So let them. Go to hell with your rants, I don’t care. I dare to be different.