The Mont seems to flounder amid the uncertain and nefarious social norms of team player gaming.    Whilst there may be an unrivalled satisfaction in slogging it out mono et mono in open 1 against all combat, it is all too often followed by that daunting request “so and so and such and such invites you to party” or join team death match etc. A request soon followed by “so and so wants to be your friend”. As pleasing as it is to earn friendship through one’s skill with an AK47, accepting friend party invites too often ends in either:

A:  Getting one’s arse blown apart while still trying to learn new rules of engagement

B: Killing shit loads of people before realising that they don’t shoot back because they’re on your f**king team

C:  Blindly following shouts of “follow me” in the faint hope that some of that 12 year old Scouse kid’s words of wisdom will pay off.

Worse is to follow.

That great night that you had last night, untouchable with the sniper rifle as you racked up kills and won the admiration of swathes of new-found buddies. Well, there’s nothing quite like two Aspirin followed by a hard day at work to make you realise that accepting friend requests from people like “Ivorbignob” and “SausageJockey” really isn’t such a good idea. Are childish name based puns really that difficult to spot after 3 Carslbergs and an hour online? 

I mean, if a guy approached me in a pub wearing a t-shirt bearing the words “nylon face mask lover” I just wouldn’t want to be his friend. I wouldn’t want to join all of his friends playing games all night and I wouldn’t want to hear from him the day after. But if someone matches my score in a game on the 360, or wins it with the last kill of the match, the chances are I will have accepted their friend request, joined their team and given my address and phone number, before realising that my new friend “Doesbadthingswithleather” is the kind of person my mother spent years warning me about.