How has chess ruined your life?

We all hear about the benefits of chess such as that it improves your memory, you meet new people, it increases your IQ by 20 points, and it's a productive way to spend your time before your inevitable death of a pure dark void. But what about the downsides?

I'll start.

If it wasn't of chess I would have had more time to focus on my academic studies, I would have enough money to pay off my student loan instead of wasting it on NYC chess gambling, I would not have assaulted my girlfriend, and I would be a respected professor teaching gender studies instead of turning to a life of crime and drugs.

What about you? Please share your experiences with chess addiction.

I wish I hadn't been good in Chess. To be good in chess takes 1000s hour of play and study. That time should be put in productive endeavor. I should have studied creative writing. I could have written the Harry Potter series and earned 100s of millions.

I log onto this site and check my games/the forums etc. every time I have a free minute. It's the baseless fear of wasting spare life time which is the reason I rather play Chess than acquiring a new hobby.

Afroman - Because I played chess

Rowling earns more than all World Champions combined. An author of best sellers earn better than Silman, Dvoretsky, Nunn, Seirawan and other chess authors combined. And creative writers are adored by women.

I started playing chess recently when i suffered a torn ACL so it really hasn't ruined my life on the contrary it is keeping me engaged.

You really cannot blame chess for ruining your life,it would be better for you to find a structured regimen that you want to follow,to get your life in order.Do know your priorities and work out a plan accordingly.

@OP - Your disrespect has been reported. The likes of you should be eradicated. Unfortunately, you will but create another abusive account after being zapped. You take some form of demented pleasure in disrespecting chess. Thankfully, you are in the vast minority. I speak the Truth.

When you have no other hobbies and this is the only one

Every hobby is just a way to pass time towards our death, it's just that society (that word makes me sound like a 13 year old Atheist) has deemed some hobbies more worthwhile than others.

Other than seeking Enlightenment, survival, maybe procreation... All activities are waste of time.

Dunno man, it seems like you're in the vast minority of people who take this game and this site way too seriously. I highly doubt I'll be "zapped" for my disrespect towards the "spirit of chess." I speak the Truth. It's kind of ironic how you say I have some "demented pleasure" in posting random stuff on a chess website but it's perfectly normal for you to stalk and follow a chess.com troll.

another bullshit thread by an idiot trying to get responses. please chess.com shut down the columns and turn this site into a chess site and steer all this bullshit nonsense back to facebook.

i actually pay to belong to this site. 

Paying doesn't give you any rights to speak profanity. Try it at a bar.

Is chess so fragile today that it needs protecting from humor? Then chess has indeed ruined your life. 

Hey,  leave @bunicula out of it!  He may have been undead once  but now he's just dead or just undecided ... 

The pet sematary is always a bad idea. It's like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.  His mom never learned to order a single flavor.