Yes I have some great memories of discussing games / PC's with friends at highschool in the 90's - we learnt a lot from each other pre-interwebs by sharing experiences / theories. DOOM and C&C were particularly social games - one of the guys in our group had 2 PC's in his house (wow!) and we'd run a null modem cable b/w them and play till we dropped. I still see that guy from time-to-time; we work in different departments of the same company. It's just banal pleasantries b/w 2 office workers and back to our desks now - those lads who played games / drank scotch / discussed the big issues all night long are long gone 😢

These days games are my retreat from the world - strictly single player offline stuff for me, preferably with no-one else in the room.

In the same year I got my PC my best mate and I went halves in getting a null modem cable. (we were 15) That progressed to a few other friends and a network card.
4 years later when we upgraded from a 486 to a P2 400 my brother was old enough to join in, Although this limited us to the same DOS games that worked on the 486. C&C, Red Alert, Doom's, Warcraft 1 & 2.

Last time either my brother or best mate came over from Australia you can bet we fired up 2 of my retro PC's and played those same games! In the end it was a big part of our lives.
I've lost contact with the other guys from back then and playing with someone "new" wouldn't be the same as it works out any time we played outside our little social group we weren't really very good! (we had a building grace period for C&C as and example)

Also played Quake3, Unreal Tournament, GTA 2 after work sometimes after work at my 1st IT job many years ago. that was great, but even though the 3 of us are in contact from time to time, we have all moved on from that period, they are the ones that would think I was a freak