Kriss Bliss, who was ignorant to all things gamer until falling in love with one, discusses what happens when the geek-challenged shacks up with the ultimate gamer.
Here’s another installment of The Gamer Girlfriend, and a timely one at that: my gamer boyfriend and his buddy are but 10 feet away gleefully creating a new accounts for Warhammer: The Age of Reckoning (WAR). Which brings me today’s sad, sad topic: the Gamer Widow.
Urban Dictionary offers the following definition of Gamer Widow:
“A woman whose significant other has grown a cord out of his manhood that seems to attach to a console or computer of sorts. She sleeps alone because her man was killed when he was almost to the next level of Halo, Half-Life or WoW. My boyfriend has been playing Halo for 71 hours straight - I've become a gamer widow.”
I’ll add that gamer widows come in all genders. Anyone in a relationship with a gamer could potentially refer to his or herself as a gamer widow, so long as the widow feels they’ve experienced neglect and/or loss connected to their partner’s gaming habits.
Websites like GamerWidow.com (“Gaming’s Other Half”) and GamingSucks.com have sprung up over the last few years to support the growing numbers of self-identified gamer widows. One GamingSucks.com poster laments:
“I can’t take it anymore… He’s not even a shadow of the man I fell in love with. I don’t feel much towards him at all now except a bitter resentment for having stolen my ‘good years.’ I threaten to leave him all the time and now he has basically agreed that I should…I hate the way I am when I’m around him. I have to live my life and stop worrying about trying to make him live his…”
Ouch.
Anyway, I’m not going to venture into the topic of Internet/gaming addiction for fear that I’ll incite the wrath of scorned gamers and geeks everywhere. And I’m not going to lash out at the gamer widows (buck the f*ck up, little widow) for flailing about in their own victim-hood.
I’m just not going to go there, because there already seems to be enough of this swirling about the Internet ether. I have no doubt that the majority of widow posts and gamer rebuttals stem from authentic feelings and experiences. And while I get the concept, I myself don’t identify as a gamer widow. Here’s why.
I don’t share my boyfriend’s passion for gaming. In fact, prior to him I rather loathed video games. I fancied placing myself on some kind of faux moral high ground about the perils of gaming on modern culture, while simultaneously gorging myself on crap television.
At first, gaming was an issue for us. I didn’t understand how he could spend eons on the computer or have friends he’d never met in three-dimensional form. He couldn’t understand why I cringed at the idea of immersing myself in a world running loose with ogres, high elves and dwarfs.
This is when the big “C” first entered our conversations. Were we compatible? Was he condemned to being shamed and misunderstood? Was I doomed to be a gamer widow? I could have “become” a gamer widow. I could have continued harboring my resentment. He could’ve blasted back with his own list of grievances.
But that’s not what we chose to do. Neither one of us wanted to fall victim to a toxic relationship. I didn’t want to squash his passion, and he didn’t want me to feel unloved. This is where big picture compatibility superseded small-fry gaming incompatibility.
So we joined around this common goal and compromised. A couple times a week, I joined him online with my Wood Elf Fury. He in turn agreed to trek out into the real world with me. I accepted he’s obsessive about his passions and have come to respect this. He accepted I have the attention span of a gnat and still shows his love for me everyday. I give him space to pursue his interests and he encourages me to be my own person.
Find your common ground. If there is one and it’s strong enough, you’ll have a better chance at working through smaller picture incompatibility. I understand this won’t resonate for everyone, but I offer it as one perspective. Gaming incompatibility can be a great litmus test for relationship resiliency and commitment.
Image via Gaming Sucks