Guilty Pleasures.

Blogging?
Chess?
Pumping iron with my tomboy future wife?
Greenday?
List making?
Monk episodes?
Starcraft?
Spinjas? Marblemaze? (my 10 year old guilty pleasures)
Finding a new band to join on craigslist (even after i'm in 4)

Sure, these are all valid. But for the sake of guilty pleasures of mine that could cause the most potential embarassment, lets go with online sports-oriented strategy games.

• Like this one. Hoops Dynasty .

• Or fantasy football.

• Or mock draft contests on saintsreport.com

• Or college basketball brackets.

This stuff does take up a large portion of many of my days. It's pretty much anti-social, offers minimal intellectual stimulation, and directs my time away from more important activities.

I'm aware of how ridiculous it is to try to defend such a waste of time, energy, and brainpower in one persuasive essay. However, I will defend the "guilty pleasure" as a necessary method of personal therapy.

We all know that our minds are complex, and the boundless complexities of our daydreams and urges lead us occasionally into a desire for a personal pleasure that cannot really be shared with compatriots or understood in daily conversation. Maybe this is due to embarrassment, or in my case, lack of people with common interest to share these pleasures with. Either way, if those needs can be met easily in our online, interconnected society, and those pleasures do not maliciously detract from the necessary actions for every day life, then I say, INDULGE YOURSELF! (but only to a healthy level)

Do not feel guilty for having guilty pleasures! For no two people are the same, and no two people find pleasure in ALL of the same activities. The reason feeding a guilty pleasure feels like scratching an itch is because a guilty pleasure is often an interest that contrasts with your everyday social norms. While it is obvious, and not a sign of a guilty pleasure at all, that a young music snob like me might go home and put on his Gang of Four record, it is not obvious that I might do that while compiling basketball statistics for my mythical Division II team that is on a mythical 4 game winning streak in my online basketball strategy universe. It's also not obvious that after I put on my Gang of Four record, I will very possibly re-listen to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and potentially disco-dance alone, in my room, in my underwear.

Guilty pleasures define us more than our more obvious day-to-day interests that could be considered predictable given our age, sex, race, subculture, income level, religion, and location.
Enjoy them, they make you unique. Seriously.