wanna play roblox?

By: Anne Le 

“This class is boring. Wanna play Roblox?” was a question my friends and I would always ask each other, whether we were at home or at school, since 10th-11th grade. Before any other video games I’ve really played, I’ve always loved Roblox. But out of all my friends, I always found myself playing that game with one of my closest friends, Linh Bui, the most. 

When I was still getting close to Linh during my sophomore year, it was kind of hard because it felt like we didn’t have anything in common at first. 

I didn’t know if I really liked her either, because it felt like my interactions with her were dull and she’d rather talk to our mutual friend instead of me. 

The first time I asked her if she wanted to play Roblox with me was when we were both in different classes on a random Tuesday during March in 2024. I didn’t know how she would react, but she quickly joined me, and we ended up having a lot of fun. 

In the beginning, we didn’t really talk a lot during the times we played, usually just making small talk in chat before going back to playing in silence. 

Linh: We didn't really chat much. And then once we started building our bases and we got the weapons, we started attacking each other and attacking other people too, but we still weren't talking that much. 

We started to play all kinds of games on Roblox. Tycoons, obbys, horror, simulators, and more, slowly getting closer the more we played together. 

Soon enough, we started talking more to each other in games, even with other players. When we first talked to other players in chat, they would get upset at us quickly for small reasons, such as having a bio that we thought was funny. It never bothered us, though. 

Linh: When we got in the game, we customized ourselves, and we made ourselves look really, really cute. And we gave ourselves a bio that was half-demon, half-human. And then some admin got mad at us, and they approached us, and we basically got hatecrime for having a half-demon, half-human bio. What's wrong with that? And then we got hate crime for the way we look. Okay, sorry that we don't want to assimilate into the norms. We just want to be different in ourselves, you know?

We went on to play together almost every day, in the mornings, during class, and late at night. We’d always troll little kids on servers because it became our favorite activity in games, but somehow I always ended up being the only one who got banned. It was still funny to us, though, and we never took it seriously. 

During the summer, we played Roblox even longer at night, and we always played different games, whether to troll, level up, or just try something new. 

            Linh: It was really fun trolling people and seeing how they would get mad from like the simplest thing, like you could say, "Oh, you're momless,” and then they'll get mad, and the thing was they would try reporting us, but I would never get banned. I was never banned. So they just got more mad.

Playing Roblox with Linh became a part of my daily routine. When we would play during school, it would often be when we were in sixth period. I always hated being stuck in 6th period. I didn’t really have friends in that class, and I dreaded being alone in a class where everyone knew each other. 

Because we would play Roblox, I didn’t really mind being in 6th period anymore because I had something that kept me busy after I’d finish my assignments in class. I started making sure to complete my assignments to spend more time with Linh on Roblox, and it became another motivation for me to get things done. 

However, we eventually stopped after mid-summer, before senior year began. I didn’t even notice how quickly we drifted from Roblox and spending time together, trolling kids, and playing random games we would find. 

We never brought it up again after, even though sometimes I look back on what we did on Roblox. I wondered if Linh really did enjoy our time together or if she simply had just moved on. 

Linh: I do miss those times. It was really like, it helps a lot with mental health too, I guess, because sophomore year, like the sophomore slump is real. And like, I don't, I'm not sure about Anne personally, but I was like struggling with schoolwork, and I like often fell behind, and I was like, I wasn't motivated to do anything, but like playing those games, like really helped boost my mood. And it was like one of my happiest days, and if I could, I would definitely go back and play even more games.

Now, I don’t think much about it anymore. Maybe it was because we simply felt content enough together that we didn’t need to play games anymore to keep our friendship alive. After all, that wasn’t the only activity we’ve done together. 

We’ve volunteered together, hung out, and talked about many things other than just a game that once kept us continuously talking with each other. 

But even though we don’t think of Roblox or the days we would just play to troll other players or simply just have fun, it doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten it, and I still appreciate the memories we made from playing together. So rather than looking back on the memories we had, I’m looking forward to new ones on what we might do in the future together. 

            Linh: I think it definitely made us closer, like way closer than anything would have. Because freshman year, when I first met Anne, we did know each other, but we never really talked or played games together before. Because there was not anything to really connect us. And through these games, I was really able to connect with Anne, and I feel like that brought us a lot closer because I understood that, oh, we do have something in common, and it was just more than Roblox.