When I was in 2nd grade or so, I was staying the night at my Aunt's house and she let me play TS1. The first family I made was a single mom with her daughter. They hated their lives and I sucked at taking care of them (red plumbobs, puddles and flies everywhere, broken appliances galore). Despite that, I fell in LOVE. Never stopped playing since and I'm now 18 years old.

My husband & I are high school sweethearts. The first year we were together, he took me over to his uncle's to introduce me & this led me to babysitting his two cousins (I think they were 9 & 3 at that time). His cousin Curtis had TheSims installed on his dad's computer & showed me how to play. He knew about most of the cheat codes. I was only able to play for about 30min after they went to bed & the family I created certainly didn't last long. I knew nothing about skilling them or how to prevent them from dying. I remember the wife-sim I created tried to cook a simple meal while I was busy trying to get her hubby into the shower. Next thing I know really creepy music starts playing & the guests all started wailing. She had burned to a crisp. I wasn't able to play TheSims again for years, Curtis uninstalled it & gave it to one of his friends when he got bored of it (silly silly boy), but I never forgot it or Grim's music.
A few years after high school, my husband bought the console version of TheSims for me & a few months after that, he found the Sims2 for console. I was absolutely thrilled & quite addicted. It did bother me that the console games were more goal oriented; do this so you can go do that type of thing. Plus once you "beat" the goals, you were kinda stuck. We didn't get a computer into the house until 2006 (I was staunchly against having one, knowing his level of game addiction. I figured we'd never speak again other than meal times when he scarfed his food to get back to whatever he was playing). My future in-laws bought him one for his birthday, so he made a point of finding the Sims2 for my birthday . I was hooked line & sinker, it was beyond anything I expected it would be after playing only on the playstation. We used to scrap a bit about whose turn it was to use the computer lol & how long the other one was playing last time. It's only been in the last 3 years that I discovered the amazing online community & the joy of cc. It has really turned my game around! Plus it's not glitching anymore with finally being patched & all the other fixes developed. Of course, once that happened, it was a family discussion about me buying myself a laptop, as my husband said he didn't have much space on his pc for all the downloads I was collecting

My original draw to The Sims was kind of lame really. My life was unbearable and I didn't see any way to change my situation at that time. I decided to take a free writing class sponsored by a local college and one of the people in my class played The Sims and I stopped to pick some things up before class and he had the game going on his computer. I tend to completely immerse myself when I read or play computer games and the idea of "becoming" someone else and living a different life seemed like a much needed mental mini-vacation. Once I played, I was hooked. I could create stories and even my own little world. When Sims 2 came out I refused to convert. Then my Mom died. I was devastated and couldn't even listen to music or watch TV. After several months I finally got back into forums and saw some Sims 2 video footage. I checked out the teaser in my Makin' Magic disc set. Discovered I could make Sims look like anybody I knew. Decided I wanted to get Sims 2. I created my family and in a way it helped when I missed my Mom. I'm happy to say that I was finally able to change my situation and am no longer living with abuse. I am happy in my life now and prefer living a real life. But I still love my Sims. Now if I could only get them to work on Windows 8 so I could take them with me on my laptop