So. Games. Girls. Oil and water, right? Playing games or get a girlfriend. You get to choose one. Either you, as a gamer (naturally you are a guy) have the choice between spending all your time on Madden or WoW OR you can date a woman. Because we all know that women are disinterested utterly in games. Bitter and unhappy gamer widows are the only result of an attached guy playing video games. Of course! We all know that, right?

Um, hi. I am a definitely female, and I spend an unreasonable amount of time playing games.* I will admit that I primarily play WoW, and I play it with my boyfriend. In fact, I know rather a lot of video game playing girls of all varieties. One friend of mine is nigh unbeatable at first person shooters. Several of my friends play WoW. And almost all the girls I know will admit to playing something like Wii Play or Super Monkey Ball at a party.

I hear on occasion that video games are destroying society in any number of inventive ways. They cause violence, they cause men to objectify women, they cause relationships to crumble, and they are as addictive as heroin laced with alcoholic nicotine. My answer to all that is that violence and objectification have been going on for millennia. There’s nothing new about them. I mean, ever hear of Sparta? How about Rome? Pretty classically misogynistic and violent societies there, kids. Anything, taken out of context, can be made a scapegoat for any problem you want to use, and anything can become an obsession.

Personally, I think that playing games with my sweetie is a great way for us to hang out. Sometimes I’ll just watch him play while I knit and talk to him. Sometimes he’ll watch me play while he folds laundry or finishes up some work. Sometimes, we even play together. He thinks that it’s sexy. I think it’s entertaining. Amazing. Trick is that we also actually spend time talking over dinner, going out to places together, seeing friends… you know, actually living life.

Ok. It’s true. In excess games can cause social dysfunction, however, I daresay that’s true of anything taken as far as obsession. I’ve heard of people becoming compulsive over collecting, over exercise, over dieting, over Legos … anything can become unhealthy if taken to a ridiculous extent. Everything in moderation folks.

Video games and a healthy relationship. Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria.
Anyone else find gaming in their relationship?

*disclaimer: I am also super sexy, can weld (and otherwise play with melted steel,) and play with large amounts of electricity for a living. I truly enjoy breaking stereotypes.

Related links you might find interesting on this subject? Try this article here, and you can check out these unhappy women bemoaning their fates…

Share This

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 12:10 am and is filed under games, Neomera. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.