Gencon Couples, Help me!

[BOZ]

O yeh, did I mention he does know hwo to give the **** of a life?

TMI time!

 

[BOZ]

My 2 cents, canadian though they are.

less than worthless?

 

[jdavis]

I think i should add more info.

The week of Gencon is 2 weeks before Caryn (Ruaalien2) leaves for her new college in Rhode Island.

For the last year we've practically spent every day together, with the exceptions of times when I went to Gencon or Winter Fantasy, or when she went on a cruise with her mother.

After she leaves, due to financial and time constraints, as well as other responsiblities (working to pay rent), It will be weeks/months between our visits together.

The dilemma is, that If I go to gencon, I'm spending less time with her. But If I dont go to gencon I'll be misrable. She saw how I moped around like a neutered dog during Gencon So-Cal cause my best friend went (whom I introduced to Gencon last August) and I didnt.

My solution, is that she go with me. This way not only is she exposed to something very important to me, but we still spend some of that time together.

I dont beleive she'll really be bored if she goes with me. Even if she's not as much of a geek as the rest of us. I'm sure she'll be able to find SOMETHING to do when she cant join me in what I'm doing. Plus her National Sororites home office is in Indy, and she could visit them whilst there.

It all boils down to the fact that, If I go alone, we're apart and she'll be upset/depressed over it, and we'll miss one another (as any couple would). If I dont go, I'll be misrable and depressed over going and might even end up resenting her for it (subconciously anyway). At least if we BOTH go, neither of us ends up misreable or depressed andwe spend time together. Oh, and she becomes more of a geek, joining us in the dark side. :-D

There will be other GenCon's but going off to college tends to end relationships (not saying it will end but long term relationships rarely work out, it is a risk). I would try to spend as much quality time together as possible to make sure the relationship is tight enough to last long distance before I'd even begin to worry about GenCon. It's not like I'd even rank a gaming convention against a serious relationship, one's long term future important and the other is just another convention.

If this was just a question of should I take a girlfriend to GenCon, then I'd say sure no problem, people do it all the time and oftentimes girlfriends can have fun too. This is a quite different question asked here though and all this compromise stuff goes right out the window when you are talking about the last two weeks before your girlfriend leaves. If you even have to decide on "will I resent her" if I don't get to go, then you have some problems that have nothing to do with GenCon, maybe you should re-evaluate just how serious your relationship is and how serious you would like it to turn out in the end. The question you should be asking is "will she subconsciously resent me pressuring her into going to GenCon instead of spending quality time with her before she goes off to college?" And if she decides not to go and you do go, then you are a fool. If she doesn't want to go then just drop it and enjoy spending time with her while you can because spending time together is what is actually important here.

ruaalien2, I have read way too much of you justifying going or not and talking about compromises here. You shouldn't have to talk yourself into this because it's what he wants you to do, if you want to go then go but do it because you want to not because he pushes you into it. The world won't end if GenCon is missed but the relationship might when you go off to college. Get your priorities straight and do what you feel you need to do for yourself. It's you that's going to be leaving everything you know to go to school, it's your time that's is important here. He should be the one making compromises, GenCon isn't near as important as moving to another state and not seeing each other for months at a time. You don't have to justify anything to yourself or him or to us anonymous people on a message board, it's your life make a choice based on what you want to do.

 

[Apocalyptic Kitty]

O yeh, did I mention he does know hwo to give the **** of a life?

But did you touch his batleth?

 

[ruaalien2]

There will be other GenCon's but going off to college tends to end relationships (not saying it will end but long term relationships rarely work out, it is a risk). I would try to spend as much quality time together as possible to make sure the relationship is tight enough to last long distance before I'd even begin to worry about GenCon. It's not like I'd even rank a gaming convention against a serious relationship, one's long term future important and the other is just another convention.

The question you should be asking is "will she subconsciously resent me pressuring her into going to GenCon instead of spending quality time with her before she goes off to college?"

Long distance relationships are hard, but seeing as how we will have been together almost 15 months when I leave, we both have confidence that our love is strong enough that we will last, and it's not like we won't see each other...just a lot less.

It's also not my first year in college, and I know what's out there in other guys, and I don't want them. I know what I want.

I don't think he even though about it in terms of that question. I'm kinda looking foward to his thoughts on it.

 

[jdavis]

Long distance relationships are hard, but seeing as how we will have been together almost 15 months when I leave, we both have confidence that our love is strong enough that we will last, and it's not like we won't see each other...just a lot less.

It's also not my first year in college, and I know what's out there in other guys, and I don't want them. I know what I want.

I don't think he even though about it in terms of that question. I'm kinda looking foward to his thoughts on it.

15 months isn't all that when your talking about a lifetime commitment. Whether it's your first year of college or not isn't all that important, it's if it's your first year away. Any time there is a drastic change in time spent together then you have to worry about this kind of stuff. People grow apart when separated regardless of 15 months together or 15 years and lots of long distance relationships end and it's neither person's fault. If you don't talk about it and work at this then there is no chance at making it (I'll assume your young as your in college, neither of you have seen all of what's out in the world yet). It doesn't matter if he post about it here or not but it does matter that the two of you have a complete understanding of what's at stake and communicate with each other. Rest assured there will be another GenCon next year, but you will never get that two weeks back again, make it count.

 

[Elephant]

Check out the event schedules for the con, find some stuff that looks interesting. If you don't see anything that grabs your interest -- or other stuff in Indy, for that matter -- don't go. It's not worth suffering through just because he wants you there. If, OTOH, you find a bunch of stuff that looks interesting, you should be able to have a fun time.

Basically, don't go just so you can be in the same city as him during the con. Go if you think you can have a lot of fun at the con. It really isn't worth the misery and resentment that going and suffering extreme boredom would cause.

I went to Gen Con for the first time last year, and my wife stayed home due to her work schedule and non-geek/gamer status. We missed each other, but it wasn't the end of the world. Actually, it was probably better that she didn't go - I don't think she would have enjoyed the con very much. Spending a couple of days apart isn't the end of the world (though it certainly does feel that way the first time you're apart for a few days after you've wedded).

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Edit: IRT the length-of-relationship stuff, it's irrelevant to the conversation. They've been together a while, they obviously have a goodly amount of affection for each other, and if they want to stay together, they will - regardless of whatever temptations or trials may arise due to the college separation. If they end up breaking up, that would happen with or without this Gen Con question. The relevant issue is whether going to the con will be fun for Rua or not.

 

[jdavis]

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Edit: IRT the length-of-relationship stuff, it's irrelevant to the conversation. They've been together a while, they obviously have a goodly amount of affection for each other, and if they want to stay together, they will - regardless of whatever temptations or trials may arise due to the college separation. If they end up breaking up, that would happen with or without this Gen Con question. The relevant issue is whether going to the con will be fun for Rua or not.

If a convention is seen to be more important than (or even as important as) spending the last two weeks together then it is a question for them (not for us random people on the internet, but they did ask for opinions). I'm sure she can find something fun to do at the convention, it's not hard. The relevant question seems to be "can they have fun and spend time together at GenCon?"

I know if it was me and my wife was going somewhere else long term and our time together was going to be limited then this wouldn't even be a question, we'd spend as much time together as possible while we could (as we did last year before I had to spend two months in Thailand for work). Besides he's the one that brought resentment about not going into it and that goes a little bit deeper than just having fun or not. It sounds like the two of them need to sit down and have a talk with each other about the subject, as opposed to discussing it on a messageboard. Maybe I'm too old and have seen too much but it's not to hard to read this thread and recognize there is more going on here than just "Is GenCon fun for girlfriends".

 

[Orblivia]

This is exactly the type of reply that Arthur was hoping he'd get

He wants this to be an 'us' thing. I have had (and still do to some extent) my thoughts about Gen Con, but after looking at the schedule, I am opening up to the idea of going a lot more. Monoploy & Scrabble tournments alone were enough to make me think twice (I'm a sucker for classic board games like that)

He has already told me that he will make sure to make this an 'us' trip and pull himself away for a few hours to enjoy Indy. I wouldn't let him totally ditch me, and he knows that.

If I wind up going (correction, that should be if we both wind up going, he won't know until early June for sure), I am sure that we will wind up planning out things to do together and things to do alone.

I think as long as I have a postivie attuide about it, I will be able to make sure that I have some fun.

Speaking as a woman hauled to a Warhammer thing once (and I am a gamer, just not dorkhammer) ...*shudder* Have fun with the us time. It often consists of "huh what honey....give me a second *takes out ruler rolls some dice* " And "Hey baby i know you now grading but we got a break, lets go eat" or my personal fave *crawls into bed at some ungodly hour after ignoring you all day and gropes*

I applaud your positive attitude, just make sure you dont get the poopy end of the stick.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I read his LJs all before we got together and I am re-going through them now. Yes, there is one or two that he says that he wishs he could give a chickl the **** of her life, but nothing like "if she wanted it or not".

O yeh, did I mention he does know hwo to give the **** of a life?

OK, this is disturbing.