My whimsy: reported missing

last seen: the sims, 2011

It was love at first sight.

It happened in 2011, at my first middle school friend’s house. Two chairs pulled up to her family computer. She double-clicked into Sims Medieval. Knights, castles, a wizard who’d just as soon curse you as put you in the stocks for the afternoon.

I watched her play for maybe ten minutes. Those ten minutes rearranged my whole world.

The second I got home, I opened my own laptop in bed. Lowest brightness possible. In case anybody saw. Googled Sims Medieval. Went to a store the next day and walked the aisle twice, too shy to ask out loud if they had it. Left without asking.

Went home. Found it on Flipkart (the OG Amazon of India). Ordered it immediately, made sure it would arrive on a day my parents wouldn’t be around to see the box.

I don’t know why the secrecy mattered so much. It just felt sacred. Slightly embarrassing. Entirely mine.

Medieval consumed me until there was nothing left to do. I’d cursed everyone worth cursing. Put half the kingdom in the stocks. Ran out of quests, out of villagers to flirt with, out of an entire fictional era to burn through.

So I moved on to the rest of the Sims universe. Unlike Medieval, this wasn’t another time. It was a mirror of ours, quirks and all.

At first, it was romance. Things that felt sacred and out of reach in real life too, back when puberty hadn’t hit yet. A pop star career on the side, if you could call it that. Very vanilla, all of it.

That got old fast.

As I picked up more romantic experience of my own, normal romance stopped doing anything for me in the game either.

So the wish list got whimsical and unhinged, fast.

Attempted the 100 baby challenge, never finished it, obviously.

Cheated on everyone I could get away with.

Trapped a few Sims in the pool without a ladder, no regrets.

Downloaded a mod to make the infidelity more immersive, no further comment.

Made myself a Criminal Mastermind. Got my male Sim impregnated by an alien.

Typed in motherlode the second earning it honestly got boring. Often.

None of it had to make sense. That was the whole point.

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As the years went by, college happened. Life happened. The Sims started to lose its luster, and my playtime dwindled.

These days I open a new world maybe once or twice a year. TV already on in the background, phone checked twice before it even finishes loading.

Somewhere in the years I wasn’t paying attention, the game grew up too. New packs started getting closer to real life. High school. A horse ranch. An actual landlord simulator, complete with bad tenants and mold in the walls.

Real life. Just slower, and with more loading screens.

Maybe that’s why we broke up. Maybe we both lost a bit of whimsy.

Figured I’d go looking for it. Redownloaded The Sims an hour ago. First thing I did was try to get abducted by aliens again.

Alexa play E.T. by Katy Perry