I got my first video game console when I was seven as a reward for some pretty exemplary school performance that culminated in my parents proudly displaying a cardboard box close to overflowing with cables, controllers, game cartridges and Nintendo’s iconic gray and black box. They’d somehow managed to snag all of it for $75 and while I imagined my dad, a Navy man stationed on Camp Pendleton, browbeating and verbally assaulting the former owners into offering such a marvelous price, odds are they simply didn’t know what it was worth.
Granted, these were the days before the internet and GameStop but a fully functioning NES in its heyday with two controllers, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and Gyromite including R.O.B., could and should have gone for a lot more, although I’m glad that it didn’t.
Before long, I was obsessed. I memorized maps, I remembered enemy patterns, I bombed every square inch of Hyrule and Zebes, stomped on every goomba in the Mushroom Kingdom, scoured every corner, and hunted down every last hidden room and secret item. However, the reality of my situation was that I was stuck with the games currently in my possession without a way nor means to fuel my obsession. Borrowing and renting games were options but not very consistent or convenient ones and trading games was a thing of the distant future.
As a result, my obsession cooled into something more akin to passion which was far healthier and much more manageable. As time passed and I learned about the wonders of washing cars and mowing lawns for money, I was able to fund myself with a SNES and, four years later various fast food jobs provided an N64.
This pattern has continued to the present day where my Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 can attest that I’m as much of a gamer as I’ve ever been. Over the years, video games have been a constant in my life: nursing me through the flu, comforting me after a break up, or just providing an escape from reality for a few enjoyable hours.
And then I recently discovered that my beautiful wife doesn’t really like video games. Not really at all, actually. Something like hate is probably closer to the mark.
I mean, sure, every once in a while we’d fight about video games but not very frequently or furiously. She would joke about throwing my stuff away while I was at work, I would mock-threaten divorce and we’d go about our lives. Typical, you say. End of story, right? Well, maybe not.
So what’s a game-loving guy to do? The easy answer is that I sell the games on Craigslist and I stop worrying about saving digital princesses, focusing all of my energy on my relationship with my wife instead. But that’s not really a very good answer. It sounds great on paper but everybody needs hobbies and alone time. I don’t know a single couple that spends every minute of every hour together and those that do tend to be the kind of people that get divorced over one of them stubbing their toe.
My defensive and argumentative side kicked in long enough for me to wonder why I had to do anything at all. I didn’t and don’t begrudge her the things that she likes that I don’t. I’m not asking her to give up Project Runway or Twilight. Granted, she doesn’t actually watch anything alone all that often and Twilight stuff takes up about ten hours and $10 annually, but still. It’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it? This is about the point where I realized how asinine this line of thinking was and abandoned it.
But while this could become a real and uncomfortable problem, there had to be some kind of middle-of-the-road solution. Love me or hate me for it, I’m an American and if any group of people collectively believe that you truly can have it all, it’s Americans. So, I repeat, what’s a game-loving guy to do?
Well, I decided to ask the experts. After all, I couldn’t possibly have the only relationship in the world struggling with this issue. So I did a little research, made some calls and very easily found a few people that were eager, almost excited, to help. Each of them approached the problem differently and, while a lot of their advice is common sense, some of it may surprise you.
Ready to dive into your psyche? I know I am. So with no further ado and, as with everything in else in life, ladies first!
Click here to go to Page 2! Find out Why She Hates it and Why You do It
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Last night, my boyfriend and I had what I would consider our first fight. We’ve been together for a year and a half, we live together, and both of us feel that our relationship is in great shape. The only complaint I have is that I feel he spends too much time playing video games. This, of course, was the subject of our disagreement, and the reason I am here right now.
This article was fantastic, and in many ways summed up just how I feel when my boyfriend plays video games for hours on end. I thought that the idea of talking as a couple about how much time seems appropriate to spend on video games (or any other hobby that is potentially causing tension in the relationship) was a great idea.
I guess what I feel has NOT been said by this article or by any of the comments listed is that it’s not the specific act of playing video games that irritates some women; it’s a balance between leisure time and time spent being productive in some way. It’s also the fact that a video game is a leisure activity, but unlike a book or TV, it requires both of your hands and all of your attention, so you cannot interact with anyone outside of your game, even for a few moments. Also, I feel that many of the comments make it seem as though in general, women with gaming husbands/boyfriends are sitting by and twiddling their thumbs while their significant others play. This is not the case with my friends and I. Several of my female friends and I have discussed this matter, and we agree: we have no problem with video games themselves, it’s a matter of how often and how long our boyfriends/husbands play, and we have no problem with our significant others having hobbies we are not involved in, but we have a problem with losing out on verbal/social interaction because our boyfriends/husbands are playing games during some times when we’d much rather have them able to greet us, talk with us, and laugh with us. And sometimes it’s simply the fact that our significant others are spending far more time each day engaged in leisure (video game-related or otherwise) than we are able to, which is a frustrating feeling, and video games take the blame.
Let me paint you a picture of a typical day made frustrating by video games. This is not every day, but more days than I’d prefer. I wake up earlier than my boyfriend by about an hour and a half, sometimes more. I arrive at work around 8:15, and many days have to stay past my “quitting time” of 4. Not bad at all, but on days that I don’t stay late, I typically go to my second part-time job from 4:30 or 5 to 8:30. Most of my days are 12-hour work days.
I arrive home from job 2 with high hopes of having a full evening in the two and a half or three hours I have left before bedtime. Ideally, that full evening would entail about 10 minutes to take care of any necessary cleaning our apartment requires, going to the gym for about an hour, and then spending the remainder of the evening (including bedtime, of course)relaxing with my boyfriend, just talking, watching TV, or doing something together.
Instead, what sometimes happens is this: I arrive home and the first sounds I hear are sounds of League of Legends or some Batman game from either the computer upstairs or the living room. I say, “Hello!” and get a hurried greeting that sounds something like, “Hey sweetie NO DAMMIT Bernie go mid, go mid….aww, man….” and head upstairs, where I often find the bed unmade, dirty clothes draped on top of the hamper or around the bedroom, snack or breakfast dishes on the desk, shoes in the middle of the floor, and my boyfriend at his computer raptly staring at the screen in his work clothes sans tie….in short, indication that since he arrived home at 5:30 or 6, he has been playing games and has completely lost track of time. He has been so absorbed that he has forgotten exactly how annoyed this exact situation makes me.
Sometimes, he finishes the game he’s in the middle of and begins sheepishly to clean up the area around him. Other times (these are becoming fewer and further between as we continue to discuss the issue of video games in our household), I leave, go to the gym, come home, shower, and am ready for bed, but still the game must go on. I am now in bed and reasonably exhausted after a long day, and would love to have my boyfriend there with me, finished with his day and ready for some combination of the typical couple bedtime routines of sex/cuddling/chatting/TV that we all so enjoy.
If he’s not finished with his game soon, I wind up falling asleep. I’m simply too tired to wait up, especially knowing I have to get up and do it all over again. So, the next day, I wake up groggily at 6:30 am, look over at him, and realize that we barely spoke the day before, let along connected in a real way. And that’s a sad feeling, but also one that makes me mad. How was it that the day before, I worked a full day plus some, managed to clean up the house, hit the gym, and perhaps read a chapter or two of a book in the same amount of time that he filled up entirely with one job and a game? Here’s where you say, “He was doing his thing while you were doing yours,” and here’s my argument: I got about an hour to do “my thing,” and that’s only if you count going to the gym as “my thing.” I’d rather not, considering I go only for the health/weight management results, not because I LOVE crunches and cardio. He got 3-5 hours of leisure time, and didn’t bother to take a break from it to turn off the game, talk to me for a few minutes about my day or give me a real hug and kiss, let alone ask, “Hey, do you need any help with anything?” I don’t feel neglected by this behavior so much as I just feel it’s rude. If I say to him, “Turn off the game, please, let’s spend some time together,” he will, but I feel like the ol’ ball and chain who took him away from his fun. That’s no pleasant way to feel.
Play all you want if your responsibilities of work/family/whatever are taken care of. Play all you want while I am at work, at the gym, out with friends, otherwise occupied. I’ll do the same; when you are gone, I am not waiting with baited breath for you to walk in and entertain me. I’m probably engrossed in a book, watching TV, napping, or out for a jog. Once you come home, you can count on me to stop whatever I’m doing to greet you and ask about your day.
So, if I come home and decide I am just vegging out, watching reruns of 30 Rock or reading a book, by all means, play your game. But even then – it would be great to get some common courtesy first. Please, pause or stop what you’re doing long enough to say hello, hug or kiss me, maybe even chat for a few minutes while I am cleaning OUR apartment or doing OUR collective laundry/dishes. Please do not let video games, which are a leisure activity requiring both your hands, your whole brain, and a whole lotta time, suck up your entire evening if there are things that should be done or there is a person looking forward to spending some time with you after a day with no down time. A little balance and courtesy go a long way in securing the good mood of your girlfriend and the well-being of your relationship.