Gaming, Adults, and Growing Up

[Mercurius]

Are you saying that "sacrifices" made for role-playing time are better than "sacrifices" for video game time? How does that even make sense? If you are compromising your life - work, spouse, friends, kids, whatever - for a hobby, no matter what hobby it is, I don't see how you can say one is better than another.

This is a rather dangerous statement if you take it too far. "No matter what the hobby is?" This is a kind of relativistic extremism that could be used to rationalize just about anything. Furthermore, there is no sense of differentiation, of value, or merit of different hobbies, which I just disagree with. There is a difference between oil painting and collecting pornographic memorabilia; obviously that is an extreme example, but it illustrates my point about the problem of saying "no matter what the hobby is."

For the record, gaming IS immature - but so is playing most childhood games as an adult, including football, baseball, and golf. OK, maybe not golf; golf is serious. But we play them anyways. Why? Well, since we don't have to hunt for food anymore, my guess is that guys (and gals) need a competitive (and creative) outlet. It simulates (and temporarily satisfies) our instincts to gather more resources.

I take issue with this sort of highly materialistic and deterministic perspective. By the same logic, art, music, philosophy, and all aspects of human culture are just "filler" for the lack of a need to hunt and gather. This may have some degree of truth to it, but is like describing the Grand Canyon as "a big hole in the ground." Yes, it is a big hole in the ground but it is so much more.

Furthermore, I see this general perspective as part of the problem of "play for adults is bad." I'm with Ursula Le Guin when she says, "The creative adult is the child who survived." When we impede or castigate or trivialize our imagination and our innate need to play, to experience wonder and joy,we risk atrophying a vital part of ourselves. Look at the world we live in--politics, Wallstreet, genocide, terrorism, etc--it is filled with people who don't play, who have lost the sense of wonder.

You won't take my advice, but I'm going to offer it anyway:

Do not marry this girl.

Don't take this person's advice, who is offering it after reading a few paragraphs of what you have wrote, with no understanding of your relationship beyond a few dozen words.

Come on, Vegepygmy. I mean, I get it: We should accept who we plan to marry for who they are, not who we want them to be. Very true. But we know very little about their relationship dynamic or how open-minded she is capable of being. Let's not be too extreme as to recommend that he not marry her without at least knowing a bit more about their relationship.

 

[Starman]

This is a rather dangerous statement if you take it too far. "No matter what the hobby is?" This is a kind of relativistic extremism that could be used to rationalize just about anything. Furthermore, there is no sense of differentiation, of value, or merit of different hobbies, which I just disagree with. There is a difference between oil painting and collecting pornographic memorabilia; obviously that is an extreme example, but it illustrates my point about the problem of saying "no matter what the hobby is."

Okay, I shouldn't have written my statement to mean "no matter what" when I meant "any reasonable (according to most "normal" people) hobby." Without trying to go too far down any sort of relativistic road, I think it's safe to say for the most part (generally, IMHO, usually, in most cases, typically, yadda yadda) that trying to say one hobby has more value than another is a foolish enterprise.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Come on, Vegepygmy. I mean, I get it: We should accept who we plan to marry for who they are, not who we want them to be. Very true. But we know very little about their relationship dynamic or how open-minded she is capable of being. Let's not be too extreme as to recommend that he not marry her without at least knowing a bit more about their relationship.

I don't think we have to worry about whether my advice is great or not; nothing I say is going to have any effect on him whatsoever. Nobody could have talked me out of marrying my first wife, certainly not some random stranger on the Internet.

And yes, relationships are complex things, and it's always possible that this one is going to work out just fine. But in 39 years of life and two marriages, I've learned some things, and my experience tells me this relationship is a bad bet. There are no guarantees, but in my opinion the odds are this girl and Dndungeoneer aren't a match. It's also my opinion that most people (myself included) are too willing to ignore the warning signs ("Love is blind" and all that) early on in their relationships, and convince themselves that things are somehow going to work themselves out. That just isn't so, and even though, as I've said, I don't expect anything I say to have any impact at all on Dndungeoneer, I'm going to say it anyway, because I believe it to be true.

 

[Saeviomagy]

When we impede or castigate or trivialize our imagination and our innate need to play, to experience wonder and joy,we risk atrophying a vital part of ourselves. Look at the world we live in--politics, Wallstreet, genocide, terrorism, etc--it is filled with people who don't play, who have lost the sense of wonder.

I think you'll find that level of play and the things you list are largely unrelated. Play is not necessarily nice or down to earth. Wall street traders and politicians play with peoples lives all the time. Most serial killers don't do what they do out of any kind of logic: they do it as play.

 

[DumbPaladin]

Strangely, almost every response before mine is correct. This does not happen often, so please make a note to read all of their intelligent responses and salient points.

In addition, I have to say: any significant other -- male or female -- who wishes you to change something about yourself in order to please them is not going to stop with just one thing.

Nip it in the bud, before it becomes a pattern either of you expect to happen. She has no more right to ask/demand that you give up something you enjoy (that isn't harmful to anyone's health), than you do to make such demands of her.

 

[Werebat]

Strangely, almost every response before mine is correct. This does not happen often, so please make a note to read all of their intelligent responses and salient points.

In addition, I have to say: any significant other -- male or female -- who wishes you to change something about yourself in order to please them is not going to stop with just one thing.

Nip it in the bud, before it becomes a pattern either of you expect to happen. She has no more right to ask/demand that you give up something you enjoy (that isn't harmful to anyone's health), than you do to make such demands of her.

All of this is good advice. I agree with Vegepygmy's last post as well. I've been through a divorce, and it isn't pretty (and mine wasn't really all that bad, in the final analysis). The situation the OP describes is a red flag. Ignore red flags at your own risk.

Look at your parents' relationship. Was your mom always nagging your dad to "grow up" and change in other ways? We have a tendency to try to repeat the relationships we grew up watching, or at least to ignore the inherent problems they had until it's very late in the game.

My GF (who is more than a GF at this point as we live together and have children, and would probably be married if either of us felt the need for it and/or didn't enjoy being iconoclasts) doesn't play RPGs, but gives me a lot of freedoms in general, as I give her. We wouldn't have it any other way. The kind of behavior you are describing, OP, is indicative of a host of other issues that are not going to stay buried forever.

- Ron ^*^

 

[Pbartender]

"1. Sometimes a choice must be made between me getting what I want or Katrina getting what she wants. 2. When this happens, Katrina gets what she wants.
3. I do this because I'm a man. I won't settle for second best when there's a choice.
4. Not putting my True Love's wants ahead of mine is a second best sort of love."


Yeah, I can see the conflict there. I guess the argument would be that the OP's girlfriend isn't his true love? Because then she would care more about what he wants?

My wife and I have been together for more than 12 years. My take on this particular subject (who gets to win arguments) is this:

There are things worth arguing over, and there are things that aren't. You need to figure out what is and is not worth an argument to you... but most things shouldn't be.

If it isn't worth it, let the other person win.

If it is worth it, fight (and by fight, I mean calmly, reasonably, but forcefully make your case) tooth and nail to prove you're right (and hopefully your opponent has the wisdom to realize when you are right). Just make sure you have enough perspective to stop fighting if your argument fails and you truly are proven wrong.

Your favorite hobby might just be something worth arguing for.

 

[xipetotec]

My wife and I have been together for more than 12 years. My take on this particular subject (who gets to win arguments) is this:

There are things worth arguing over, and there are things that aren't. You need to figure out what is and is not worth an argument to you... but most things shouldn't be.

If it isn't worth it, let the other person win.

If it is worth it, fight (and by fight, I mean calmly, reasonably, but forcefully make your case) tooth and nail to prove you're right (and hopefully your opponent has the wisdom to realize when you are right). Just make sure you have enough perspective to stop fighting if your argument fails and you truly are proven wrong.

Your favorite hobby might just be something worth arguing for.

I totally agree with this. Pick your battles. There are so many things that are just not worth fighting about! But of course, that doesn't mean you should just roll over for all issues.

 

[CharlesRyan]

For me, what has always worked was explaining that gaming is my "poker night." We drink, we roll some dice, have some laughs; and I come home happy to spend the majority of my time with the significant other.

I'm going to dig back into the thread and quote this one for truth.

Many people have said this is a red flag, and they may be right. But if she's simply seeing this as a high-school-aged activity that you haven't let go of, she might not be too unreasonable in wondering why not.

Making the entirely valid comparison to a poker or bowling night might give her a different perspective, especially if it helps her realize there are millions of adults who gather to game in this manner.

 

[TarionzCousin]

So I put it in perspective for her: I told her that her brothers (and sometimes her) sat around watching football every weekend, and talked about it non stop, and memorized a lot of "meaningless" statistics about it... and that the only difference between them and my friends was that we actually play a game instead of watching others play, and we generally drink less beer. I said all men (and many women) are into some kind of game, and that it seemed kinda rude to think I needed to grow up but the dudes watching football all the time were fine.

Yeah. Become a sports fanatic. Take up Fantasy Football, Basketball, Baseball, Tiddlywinks, etc. She will beg you to go back to gaming.