I personally cannot think of too much extreme FOMO that I have had for experiences. I actually very much prefer to be home, and am quite introverted if given the choice when it comes to public settings. Of course, in classroom settings where participation is required, I am able to get past that part of myself.
I think the best example I can give is with board games. I love board games, and when I get a board game, I like to get ALL of the board game. If there are expansions for the game, I want to have all of them. I actually just recently decided to NOT buy Carcassonne, because I looked up how many expansions their were, and realized that I would have anxiety over not having all of them, even if I hardly ever played any of them.
I also hardly ever am in the mood to play Settlers of Catan on my personal copy of the game, because I don’t have the several expansions that are available. I actually love Catan, and will play when my friends bring it out at their houses.
One of my favorite games of all time, Dominion, had an expansion the was recently released, and I have been forcing myself to not buy it, because while in school, I have not been playing the game enough to justify getting the expansion at this time.
I am getting married in June, and I was looking all over for something I could get my groomsmen as gifts. I found a print-and-play game, where you pay $0.99 once and get the PDF, and then can make as many as you want. It seemed like a fun game that I would love, and so I decided “I am going to buy the full set of this game (like 20 different PDFs of different components) and print off a full copy for each of my groomsmen”. Note: I m going to give my groomsmen the link, and tell them that if they want to have more, they have to buy the game themselves.
My buddy convinced me to make a character and play Dungeons and Dragons with him. I loved it, and within 2 days, I had the beginnings of a novels worth of backstory for my character. I almost bought a complete set of the newest D&D books (like $200 worth of books) simply because I was thinking “I should really get into this!” That buddy is the only person I know who plays D&D, aside from the people he brought to the game. Luckily, I realized that before forking over the cash.
For me, FOMO is not about big events, it is about table top and board games. I also think my love of board games is, at this point, qualifying as a minor addiction (I say minor because I am able to deny myself, and I would never do anything illegal to feed it). This blog assignment has actually been immensely helpful, and I think I know some areas I need to be more mindful of my approach to boardgames.
Aaron Reger 