"[Discussion] I really love this game, it's done more for me than anyone realizes. Ranting/venting/SOB story, but thank you."

#PokemonGO: Tonight I looked through my texts and I noticed that I haven't received a text from a non-pokemon go friend or person outside of family in about 3 months.(The SOB story)Between April and August my social circles fell apart. I've felt really alone.My dad died.A friend of 13 years abruptly stopped talking to me. I still don't know why.Boyfriend of 8 years cheated on me and we broke up.The group of friends we had were his friends first... even though some of them were very sweet about us ending, I'm no longer in communication with a group I've spent a lot of time with throughout the years and loved.The one friend who tried to keep contact moved 3 major cities away.My best friend since the fourth grade decided to go back to school. Which is great, but at the time, she was the last person I had, so as happy as I acted for her, it was an act. She's moved across the country and we skype sometimes.My best friend's girlfriend became insecure with me being around her boyfriend. They were going through some issues already, she's a little insecure in my opinion, and I came up as a tangential problem. So we stopped talking. I was mature about it - I understand how much she means to him, and even though our relationship was nothing but platonic, I removed myself from his life, too.My cousin moved out of the areaI moved out of my old place with roommates and live alone. I didn't think that would be a big deal, I was looking forward to it, but staying might have helped.Prior to all of this, years ago, I was in a work place accident in a company I started with my friends. Dealing with the ramifications of that basically destroyed our small company and our friendship.All of this is to say I don't have many people in my life. I am rebuilding.(Why I love This Game)The last 30+ individual or group texts that I have received are all from pokemon go friends. Coordinating trades, organizing raids, planning friendship increases, group texts from other mystics to take down gyms. But other things too - going for sushi, going to play pool, and bowling and recommendations for different purchases. Talking about our jobs and bosses. Or the mini dramas within our group. I've enjoyed helping other players and everyone in my pogo circle knows they can ask me questions.I say all of this because I left youtube autoplay on and heard some random video about "the philosophy of pokemon go", where some people apparently felt that pokemon go was some kind of capitalist scheme to collect mass amounts of data, and the tone was critical. I don't remember the video or it's exact contents but it got me thinking.This game is a lot more than a game to me. Without all of the social niceties and the excuses to go for walks with people, just the human interaction, I might have literally... given up.Thank you to everyone who is nice, and inclusive, and friendly, and especially for those people who are eager and happy to meet others and bring people into their lives outside of the context of the game. This game has facilitated those interactions and I really really love it for that.I haven't shared any of these details with my pokemon go friends. Not one. The friends I have now because of the game are friends, not out of pity or sympathy, but because this game has allowed me to make genuine connections with people, and frankly, forced me out of the house on days I wouldn't otherwise have gone.So, when you're friendly with people you meet, it's possible you're talking to me, and helping me just get through my day with a nice chat about a shiny or hundo you caught, or talking about the next tier 5 boss. And it's helped, and I appreciate it, and I've had lots of fun.Just... thank you. via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/2Na1Zyn