Jealousy

It's a thing that kills friendship. It's probably the main feeling that (usually) can indirectly destroy your closest friend. When i mean by indirectly, by itself, jealousy is harmless, but once it leads you into taking action against your more physically or metaphorically "wealthy" friend, that is when the "bridge" of friendship begins to crumble.

Experience with jealousy, is...unfortunate. It's difficult to deal with it, as a feeling from yourself or as a feeling from a friend, who in turn, takes action against you to try to level with you in-terms of whatever he is jealous of. In this example, (which is also my most recent and fresh in my mind), involves a video game called "Team Fortress 2", a multiplayer FPS (first person shooter), that used to be pay to play, but now is free to play. What happened was, my friend and I, we shall call him 'Alan', are often very competitive about video games in general, and of course, when we were introduced into the community and game itself, our competitive spirits kicked in, and we sought to outplay each other in every way possible in this new game. However, if one has seen any videos relating to TF2 (Team fortress 2) you'll realise the general message is that TF2 is no longer just a FPS, it also has its very own trading community, which around 75% of active players participate in. Now, before i start to sound like im advertising the game, the fight for No.1 (between Alan and I)is mainly situated in the trading area of the game.

It all began when he was begging off others for items, and I, begun to feel like this, was the new face of competition, and so I begun to trade and make small profits, eventually, i surpassed him in wealth and currency of the game. Then, his jealousy kicked in. Unfortunately, it was not beneficial for me or anyone in the TF2 community, as he begun to unfairly trick new players in the value of their items and proceed to trade them for about 1/10 of actual value of their items. He then began to brag about making these so "profitable" trades, using dirty tactics. Eventually, I caught on, and realized he was ripping traders off. Now, we can not play a game without arguing about items. It's quite a shame to see a friendship deteriorate over a time. It my sound like im complaining, but it's only my most recent experience and to show that jealousy can exist everywhere, in my case, video games.