Reflections on my first [and last] time Paintballing

One of my co-workers in an extremely generous gesture invited me an two of my buddies out to go paintballing. . . A week after the experience, I wrote him this email:

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just wanted to say thanks again for the opportunity to go paintballing with you guys - I think that it was the first time since I was a kid playing laser tag that I have done anything like that. It was certainly a pretty powerful learning experience for me. . .

It definitely was a serious adrenaline rush. . . and as I have thought about it more I think I decided that it was an adrenaline rush that I don't need to repeat. . . Don't get me wrong, I am really glad that I did it, but most of the time we were out there, what was running through my head was a repeated mantra, "I'm so fucking glad that this isn't for real. I'm so fucking glad that this isn't for real. I'm so fucking glad that this isn't for real.". . . I couldn't really get into it or enjoy it the way that you guys seemed to . . .

I'm not exactly sure why that was my reaction. . . I do know that I was really close with my grandfather who was in WW I . . . he got forcibly drafted into the German Army when we was still in high school and sent to the front lines in the trenches. . . In some ways he got lucky in that within a relatively short time he was hit by shrapnel in his leg and was captured by the Americans an spent the rest of the war in US prisoner of war camp. His leg never healed entirely and into his 80s little bone fragments and chips used to emerge out of the skin of his foot and legs. . .After that experience, he became a pretty devout anti-war activist. . . he used to tell me about the horrors of war, and I read his memoirs which are pretty interesting. . . Anyway, somehow there were a lot of thoughts about his experiences that came back to me as we were running around in the woods "playing war".

So, in short, I am not entirely sure why, but it wasn't a very enjoyable experience for me. . . There was a part of me that felt like maybe if I went back and did it more that some of that uncomfortableness might go away, but there is a larger part of me that is pretty glad that combat (even when it is only being mimicked) makes me feel that uncomfortable.

Please don't think that I am some kind of anti-gun nut. . . I think that I would really enjoy hunting (although I haven't really had the opportunity to try it). . . and I have no moral issues with you guys going out and playing paintball - I am glad that you find it enjoyable, and I wish you all the best with it - I'd even recommend that other people try it out. . . but I think that to quote my father in law, "The best thing about it for me, was knowing that I'll never have to do it again."

Anyway, perhaps this is the longest email ever that could be shortened down to "please remove my name from your paintball email distribution list"

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here's the response that I received:

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No sweat, I'm on it. Of course, if you ever want to play again, just let me know.

For the record, I kind of am anti-gun, though I suppose I see the use for it if someone else has one pointed at you. I hate guns and had one pointed at me twice before I was 18 and I almost shit my pants both times. Maybe that's why I got into cage fighting because there is something more noble and less "finite" in it, at least in terms of damage.