You Know You're A Sim Addict If...

When I first started playing the original The Sims way back in the 90’s, I had no idea what I was in for. Back then, The Sims was difficult. I usually spent hours just designing my Sim family, and then another few more hours building my dream house—granted I used the money cheat. Without the money cheat, these things usually took a mere half-hour, and that was mostly because you were trying to build your dream house within your budget, which was damn near impossible.

But after a long time of playing The Sims, I started to notice these...changes...in my lifestyle. I started to think about and envision things differently. It was almost like a sickness or a passing virus that had infected my body and my mind and taken over for a short period of time. Suddenly, I began thinking in moodlets and status bars. These are some tell-tale signs that you’ve been playing The Sims for far too long.

You envision your hygiene bar decreasing when you haven’t showered in a couple days. In The Sims, every time you skip out on your daily shower, your Hygiene bar dips lower and lower until the very state of your health is at stake. In real life, though more lenient, you might find yourself paying attention to that invisible Hygiene bar.

You imagine your skill bars increasing while trying to learn a new recipe. Gaining new skills in The Sims takes a lot of work, but has a lot of rewards. In real life, if you find yourself watching that magic bar above your head increase while learning that devilish new mac and cheese recipe, don’t expect the same rewards. This is probably a sign you need to cool it on The Sims playtime.

You wish you could take the ladders off your swimming pool when you’re mad at your sibling. Probably the most classic way to get rid of a Sim you don’t like is to drown them in the swimming pool by taking away the ladders in Build Mode. If you find yourself cursing your enemies with ladderless swimming pools, then maybe it’s time to take a break and play something else. Or you can take out your anger at their Sim in-game.

Your neighbors remind you of the Goths. If you aren’t familiar with The Sims, The Goths are the original founding family from The Sims, the first to greet you in the neighborhood. And they used to be a part of the tutorial. Anyone who knows The Sims knows the Goths. And if you’re looking outside relating the neighbor’s wife to the likes of Bella Goth, you’ve let The Sims become a part of your everyday life.

When you get good news, you feel your moodlet sparkling from within you. Sometimes when you do something inspiring or maybe you hear that you got a new job, there’s a level of elation that soars through you and it inflates your chest and feels as if you’re walking on air. But a Sim addict won’t picture that. They’ll picture a moodlet sparkling in all its good mood shininess.

You picture a blue bar above your head filling up while you do your homework. Homework is the worst, right? It seems like every time someone does homework, they can’t wait to get it over with. Sim addicts might visualize their homework time as a little, blue status bar, slowly filling up until the homework is completed.

When you woohoo in real life, you always listen for the musical “baby conceived” notification. This is probably the worst of The Sims addiction. Every time a Sim couple “woohoos” in the game, there is a chance of conceiving a baby. Unlike in real life, if Sims are actively trying for a baby, you might hear that angelic harp play the musical notification that conceiving was a success. If you start hearing this music during “woohoo” time in real life, I think you’ve got a serious problem on your hands.