Notes on Being Careful What You Wish For
She's got that look in her eyes: hungry and excited, mischievous, just a little bewildered. While I still delight in that expression, now it also fills me with a peculiar dismay. It means that somewhere within her, the unquenchable fire has been relit. As always, it will burn until no fuel remains, until she is spent and exhausted and sick of herself. This fire is all too familiar to me, enough to know that there's no stopping it at this point. She wants to play--but not with me. Hesitantly, and with a hint of desperation, my girlfriend points to the laptop.
"Load up my dudes."
Her "dudes" are her characters in The Sims 2, little simulacra who inhabit a pleasant suburb within my computer. In binges of several manic hours at a time, she has built their homes, managed their relationships, and decorated their rooms. She has secured promotions for them, raised their children, and navigated them through every mundane aspect of their daily lives.
She hates them with a passion. Each session leaves her with the same distaste, the same appalling sensation of hours fickly wasted. Each session ends with the same declaration: "No more dudes, ever."
She's an architecture student working on her senior thesis. As far as I can tell, this means she should be toiling more or less nonstop. She has time for a few slight diversions (eating, showering) and perhaps one or two greater ones (sleeping, me), but any further deviance from her work adds to a time debt she can never pay off. Every moment not spent on her project will make it a little bit worse.
This is why the sims infuriate her. They require so much time, so much effort, and they offer so little in return--yet they hold such sway over her. So every game ends with an emphatic denial of all things dude-related. But the golems bide their time, and they are inhumanly patient. Eventually she'll give in and spend another several hours directing the minutia of their lives until, with even more disgust, she asserts that there are to be no more dudes, ever, seriously this time.
I am, of course, the instigating agent in this debacle. I installed the game when she made the mistake of confiding in me that the original Sims had held some unholy power over her. I also could easily take steps to end the cycle. The dudes, who live on my computer, could with just a few clicks be uninstalled and wiped from existence. Never again would they exert their hypnotic dominance over her, causing more stress than they relieve, souring her perception of games on a whole. It's because of The Sims that she sees gaming as nothing but a dangerous, inexcusable time sink.
I could break this cycle, and if I were acting in her best interests I probably would. But I'm not. I'm acting in my own. This is why the sims still live unperturbed on my hard drive, and why they have in fact been made more potent with several expansion packs. This is why most sessions still begin with me asking her if she wants to play. I am waging a secret war with her, somewhat against my own will. The real haunting, horrific fact is that I like it when she plays The Sims--even if she hates it.
To be absolutely clear, I'm aware that this is completely absurd, and not just a little scandalous. But for my own reasons, I want her to play games--and for reasons a little more selfish and bizarre, that game in particular. I'm uncertain as to when or why the desire appeared, and perhaps it isn't so odd an impulse. Don't games count as a hobby? Don't all people like their partners to show an interest in their hobbies? But somehow this feels different from getting her into playing tennis or teaching her to knit.
This was no noble pursuit. I may have believed that she could like games and that they deserved her interest. But trying to get her to play games was more for my sake than hers.
For instance, in a way I was performing the duty of all uncertain gamers, attempting to make non-gamers see the light. I was proselytizing my faith to the nonbelievers, trying to win converts. My actions were mostly in service of my conviction that games deserve to be taken seriously, that they don't belong on the margins of society--and by virtue of that, neither do I. There's also the fact that she is a creature of stunning and sometimes intimidating intelligence, and that games are a part of my life I am finding more difficult to reconcile intellectually. I can see now that I imagined that if she began to play them, they could somehow seem less frivolous, less insignificant.
Eventually I succeeded, in a way. She now plays games--well, a game. But this came with a cost. She called me up one night while I was on the road and told me she'd played The Sims all night, until it was light outside. She was caught in a classic escapist feedback loop: her desire to play fed off a fear of what needed to be accomplished once playing stopped. The game ceased to be a pastime and became waste of time, distraction instead of diversion. I recognized this cycle instantly, because it is also deeply ingrained within me.
But what frightens me is that in some ways, I found this even more pleasurable than my original idealistic goal. Playing a game all night, neglecting your work, shirking responsibility? These aren't things that she does. They're things that I do. And somehow, seeing her do these things made me feel better about myself--which is absolutely twisted. Despite the fact it was obvious I had not achieved my intended results, and the game was actually having a negative impact on her perception of gaming, I didn't stop the experiment. At this point, I'm not sharing a hobby. I'm sharing a habit.
When she gets that look, when some mysterious spark lights that fire, the world fades from her view, and I fade along with it. I have time to contemplate my sins. I know some of us are crusaders, wishing that those non-gamers in our lives could be made to appreciate these things we are so passionate about. But be assured, unless your intentions are pure, there is much to be said for being careful what you wish for.
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This situation you find yourself in makes total sense to me.
It is pretty much the same thing we are looking for when we go see a comic do his routine on stage. We want to know that there are people out there who share the same faults we do and when a comic goes on stage and shares those faults with his/her audience we realize that we are not alone. Our faults are not unique there are people out there who share those faults and understand what we are going through, this breaks a tension within us and allows us to laugh at our problems. Even if it is just for a moment.
Great article.
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Good stuff, Ian. My brain has also been guitly of devising devious schemes to ensare my gf in gaming's web. However, for reasons you so eloquently exposed in your article, I have stopped pursuing it. I have my gaming, she has her jewelry-making and phone talking, and it is good. Gaming is my time to myself and I quite like it that way. As much as I would love to share games with her (and the one exception is the Ms. Pac-man cabinet at the bar around the corner which has a rapturous sway over her) we share so many other things that I need not give up my last haven of solitary pleasure.
"I like to hear people talking when they're not talking to me," I said. "It's soothing to know that I don't have to listen." -- Bill Harris describing a truism.
I'm going to make this very clear, in case others are thinking "Hmm, I wonder what game I could get my girlfriend to play with me"
Keep. Her. Away. From. WoW.
If you are at all like me, you play a lot of games. Enough to find a timesink like World of Warcraft infringes on enjoyment of plenty of titles you would otherwise miss out on. I got my girlfriend started in WoW shortly after I started. At first, she was frustrated. Then, like many before her, WoW dug its sharp talons into her and she was (is) hooked. I'm happy she enjoys gaming, and I do take a perverse pleasure in it but just the same there is a whole world of other games she can be enjoying.
Maybe I can get her into Okami...
You can't do this!
Of course I can, I'm Will Wright, bitch! - The Simpsons Game
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My ex g/f use to complain about me playing WoW during the beta. I walked her through making a character and got her to give it a try. She liked it so much she not only bought the game when it came out she also bought a new pc, and strat guide. I bought the game also and thought it would be awesome that we could play together. Unfortunetly she refused to do little else but play WoW 24/7. It was one part of many that led to us breaking up.
I could definitely see that putting a strain on any relationship. Lucky for me I'm fairly independant and don't mind having lots of extra time to catch up on titles I've missed. My biggest fear is that her marks would suffer. She's a great graphics design student and I'd hate to see WoW ruin her chances for greatness
Luckily she seems to know her limits and gets her work done.
You can't do this!
Of course I can, I'm Will Wright, bitch! - The Simpsons Game
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My wife gets dizzy from almost any first or third person game. She actually turns pale and gets nausious, the perspective is just too unnatural for her.
The only game that lights fires of hunger within her eyes is Starcraft, to this day, that is HER game. Once the STARCRAFT bug bites her, she wants to keep playing and playing. With kids we dont play often at all, there is just no time. But it is fun those rare nights where we get a game in after the kids go to bed.
Only rub is, those rare nights where the kids have fallen asleep and we still have energy... there are other games Id rather play with her...
Xbox Live: Irongut | Playstation ID: Irongut_GWJ
Put me down for another person who has gotten his SO addicted to WoW. By the time I get home from work each day, my fiancee is already playing. I started an alt to play with her, and she plays so much that hers is five levels ahead of mine. I figure that some time in November, she'll catch up to my main. And then, possibly, overtake him.
Still, it's great. It's wonderful having her share my hobby with me, and having fun together.
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Nice piece Mal. I've stuggled with this too. I think it must be common for gamers in long term relationships with people who are, at heart, non-gamers. And ultimately what's most important in my relationship with my wife isn't making her a gamer, it's spending time together, being close. And frankly I don't want her playing a single player game when I'm sitting right next to her -- I'd rather be taking that time to BE with her.
I'm with Irongut on this one.
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Yes, what DO her Sims look like?
Exactly. What sort of got me started is that there's kind of an issue of intimacy underlying all of this. I think that no matter how you put it, games are one of the least intimate activities you could choose to do with your partner. I'm not sure I'd feel any better about this situation if we were both sitting across from each other playing WoW. So then the question is, essentially, what room is there for games in an adult relationship? Ultimately what's important is being together, and even if you meet up in an MMORPG you're still basically interacting two removes from real contact.
There's also something to be said for the idea that some people are just non-gamers at heart, and that the approach of "converting" them is just naive and a little arrogant. From now on, maybe I'll just try and be satisfied with a half-hearted "That's nice" when I get all excited about something game related.
An interesting and scary article.
I luckily don't suffer from this affliction. While i strive to get my girlfriend to try and play games i haven't really suceeded except to get her momentarily interested in a DS. She says she only "does old, easy games" - which i'm sure is a contradiction as they were never easy. She likes Mario and Sonic etc. which i keep trying to buy for my gamecube so she can have a go at odd times.
She did actually buy a DS lite along with "Over the Hedge" and another film tie-in game. I actually tried to dissuade her from buying it. I knew she didn't really want to have it, though she did want to play Over the Hedge. She ended up selling it about 3-4 weeks after buying it and completing the game. I stood and watched her make the decision to buy the handheld (holding my tongue after we'd discussed it - had to let her make her own mistake as it were) and managed to stop her from buying a screen protector pack with a case and extra styluses.
On a related note, I often feel enraged when i visit game or tech shops and start to listen to the staff push products or lie to unsuspecting customers. Not only am i angry for the people being duped, it makes me wonder in which area i'm duped in...
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Imagine someone coming home from work and not taking care of themselves i.e. eating, laundry, ect unless you choose to do it for them.
Uh...sounds like me and every other gamer guy I know!
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
not me I'll actually fix myself something to eat in between cut scenes
Sorry, gents, but I can't agree with this one. It smacks of... I'm not sure. Something. A desire to make games more (or possibly just 'other') than they actually are, perhaps. "Intimacy issues"? Do you feel bad about watching TV together? Or going to the movies? My wife and I both game, her on WoW + the puzzle-type game of the moment (currently Zuma) and me on WoW + whatever has caught my fancy. We have our desks next to each other so that we can be close, can still see each other and talk, while we're gaming. It's not about intimacy, just like watching TV isn't about intimacy, or reading a book in the living room while she's working on her sewing isn't about intimacy. It's about being able to share something, even if it's just proximity, while you're doing something you enjoy. Playing an MMO together certainly isn't "two removes from real contact"; if you're communicating, it's as 'real' as playing backgammon, or cards, or any other two-player game you care to mention.
MechaSlinky wrote:
-on L4DYou make a good point, and I think you nailed exactly what it was I had a problem with. Lack of communication. The game itself wasn't the problem it was just a catalyst of another underlying problem.
If one or the other partner has an addictive personality and really gets caught up in the MMO 'one more level', 'one more stat on an item', 'must grind each day every day', 'must raid' mentality, I think the MMO has enabled a fracture far greater than TV etc ever could. How much attention does it really take to watch tv, relatively little. An MMO on the other hand demands attention. Sure there may be an underlying problem with the relationship, but maybe it wasnt such a big deal, whereasthe MMO time / dedication requirements are suddenly making it into a big deal.
I think most folks who've played MMO's and I know that includes a lot of folks posting here, can recall a moment where the MMO haze settles in and it seems so important to get that next level. When it is you experiencing 'the haze' it doesnt really sink in how it feels to the partner to be second fiddle to a game. This is where the scenario in this article is really educational, when you consider that maybe your partner takes a greater interest in 'the game' than even you had, and suddenly you are second fiddle. As soon as there is an imbalance in interest level/dedication to "the Game" in a a real couple, I think problems are gonna start to develop.
Maybe you cant answer the phone or step away for a moment cause your in the middle of a dungeon and folks are depending on you. You explain to your partner, "These are real people waiting and they cant save." You suddenly have trouble paying attention cause you are half focused on an on-screen encounter. Maybe your partner goes to bed alone one night then another, cause those are prime raiding hours and you've got enough dkp for an item your alter ego needs. Maybe you need to farm virtual herbs or bandages instead of paying attention to your partner, cause the big raid is gonna be this weekend and your guild needs you.
These simple things start to build on each other. The first time you ask a partner to read the kids a night-time story, so you can focus on finishing out an instance, maybe its no big deal. The second time, it gets a little easier to ask. By the third time, maybe you start expecting that flexibilty. Now suddenly you arent participating. All these little things start to add up into a choice pattern of gametime instead of family/partner and lead to the MMO slide I think.
The other issue with MMO guilds is the drama can seep back into a real world relationship. Now you gotta deal with gossip or innuendo for folks that are only virtual friends of convenience.
I dunno, I can really see where a persons fantasy can suddenly become a gaming nightmare. I think that the way MMOs are designed, maybe a real world couple can latch onto them and enjoy them mutually, but I think it really excludes any such parental pairs, the time requirement is just too much. Even if you were to be hardcore MMORPGer only after the kids go to bed, you've ensured you are cutting into your sleep which will affect your ability to be that Parent of Infinite Stamina the next day.
Xbox Live: Irongut | Playstation ID: Irongut_GWJ
Nice article, it brings up some good talking points - I'm going with the old cliche B.Franklin saying of "All things in moderation" - gaming can bring a couple closer (sharing something) but also increases isolation if done too much. Ultimately, you need "couple time", which can consist of gaming sometimes but you really aren't enjoying each others company like you would talking over a romantic dinner. I think it's good that women tend not to be "hardcore" about gaming because my gf really helps "balance" my life out.
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