Millions of people spend their 70-ish years of mortal coil playing video games. And as a member of such group, I pity the ones who love us.
Finishing quests and beating high scores are among a number of reasons why we end up on the couch after a long night of, "Sure, I'll stop playing after one more level."
Sometimes things go well, and the intense devotion we have for cover systems and regenerating health makes room for a human being with actual emotions to care about. If you're lucky enough to go out with a gamer, here are five things you should probably know first.
It's 11 p.m., and the door opens. The light of the computer screen is the blue glow immersing your significant other's silent form. He taps mindlessly at four buttons as numbers fly over his avatar's head. You stand, silently as drool never quite escapes his mouth. Suddenly, he rears back, a primal scream of victory at the video game character he and 20 other people he does not know just killed.
This is World of Warcraft, and
it's mad real to him.
It's 11, again, and
you're coming home. He's on the couch, regaled in full
internet-commander attire with an Xbox Live communicator wrapped
'round his ear. He's yelling expletives, stuff so offensive you
wonder if the invisible person he is screaming at killed his father
or something.
He didn't though, he just crouched repeatedly on his
character's corpse in an attempt to emulate some sort of weird
Greco-Roman domination ritual.
He will never meet this
person, and only knows him as xXSublimeSnipaXx, but if he can project
the guy who cut us off this morning for just one second onto the
unknown face of a crackly-voiced teenager for just one second then
all will be well.
3. Sometimes we'll purchase video games at midnight.
Yep, it's 11 p.m. ... again. You're home, and he's decked out in Gears of War
1. We'll try
to get you to enjoy video games, too.
On
every forum, there exists the guy with the fabled Gamer Girlfriend.
He regales hoards of neckbearded onlookers with tales of the same
person that kisses him also totally "hogging the controller" and
other things he is able to casually slip into conversation.
Humor
us, and don't let us take the controller away when you're "not
doing it right." We mean well, we promise!
