I'm a patient man.
At least, that's how I like to think about myself. In my line of work patience is a virtue. I can't count the number of times I've had to wait for an interview, an event to begin or the RIGHT moment to interject into a conversation or ask to get a photo. Outside of people skills and the ability to write, I think patience is one of the most important attributes a journalist can have.
It has certainly served me well in other areas of life. Whenever I go for a long drive or I first begin slapping paint on a miniature, I can assure myself the destination will be worth the journey. Through perseverance, I will enjoy my time at the beach or have a wonderfully painted custom miniature.
However, there are also times when I'm less patient and more simply stubborn to a fault. That's how I get whenever I play fighting games.
For the uninitiated, fighting games are a specific genre of video game first made popular in the arcades of the 1980s and 1990s. Typically these games would be two dimensional with a fighter on each side of the screen a player could control using a joystick and buttons. I'm sure there are some reading this article now who recall playing the early versions of Street Fighter and Mortal Komabt, or perhaps more eclectic games like The King of Fighters or Fatal Fury.
I didn't grow up playing fighting games outside of Super Smash Bros which I used to play with my best friend Chris and my little brothers. Me and Chris would go on to play Mortal Kombat X together when he got it for the X-Box, delighting in mashing buttons and yelling at one another for being cheap. I would always stubbornly try and beat him in a rivalry that still persists.
Over the last year, I have been playing Street Fighter 6 on and off with a friend of mine from America. Unlike me, she has been playing fighting games for the better part of two decades ever since she was a child. When we first played together I was able to win once or twice but she soon mastered the game (though she would claim she hasn't) and would regularly beat me. As a more casual fan, I enjoy playing and chatting with her and getting a bit 'titled' every time I lose.
Late last month, however, we made a wager to see how long it would take me to beat her best character, a club-wielding Native American girl named Lilly, with my best character, a proud Roman fashion designer named Marissa. I accepted the wager and got to work.
It took me 100 matches to beat her. A hundred matches of banging my head against an immovable object until finally with a mix of luck and skill I finally took her character out. I let out one of the most primal roars I've ever made when I finally crested that hill. For context, this took the better part of three hours.
So call it being stubborn or patient, it paid off for me in the end and it was a rewarding and exhilarating experience to complete. Whether or not that's a virtue, I leave up to you.
Now I wonder if I could beat her in 50 matches... after all I am a patient man, right?
