Gaming, Adults, and Growing Up

[Pbartender]

So even a single-player game is a social experience in my house. Multiplayer games? There are many and they see use. Whether it's Mario Kart with relatives, Soul Calibur IV with friends when they come over, Carcasonne with the wife on the couch, split-screen racing games or four-player Horde Mode in Gears of War 2...video games can be a profoundly social experience.

Very often on the weekends, my wife and will play an all-day-long game of hot seat Civilization. While one of us is playing our (progressively longer) turn, the other keeps busy with some little household job... Washing dishes, folding laundry, vacuuming, dusting, etc... It's one of our favorite ways to cooperatively get the house work done.

 

[TheYeti1775]

A Yeti's Advice.
Never marry with the expecting of someone to change.

Honestly knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have said I do 11 years ago.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Very often on the weekends, my wife and will play an all-day-long game of hot seat Civilization. While one of us is playing our (progressively longer) turn, the other keeps busy with some little household job... Washing dishes, folding laundry, vacuuming, dusting, etc... It's one of our favorite ways to cooperatively get the house work done.

That's one of the best things I've read today. (And this post is irony-free.)

 

[WizarDru]

Marriage advice for men, with links to parts two and three. Applicable to men seeking marriage as well.

Not bad advice, but I think Wil Wheaton summed it up quicker and with less theological reference with: "Dont' be a Dick." Less nuanced, to be sure, but the general gist is the same.

 

[aboyd]

Marriage advice for men, with links to parts two and three. Applicable to men seeking marriage as well.

Somebody help me with this. It appears to be terrible, terrible advice. Am I missing something? Let me explain what I interpreted, and you tell me if I got it wrong.

Mark, your article seems to suggest, "My marriage lasts because I give in to everything my wife wants, always. And don't tell me I'm whipped, because I assert that I'm still manly. I'll provide neither evidence nor examples to back that assertion up, but you better believe it just because I say so." If we apply what I've read to the situation here, it would appear that the OP should give his girlfriend what she wants. He should stop gaming, and "grow up" in the way that his girlfriend specifies. Have I applied this advice properly?

If so, that is terrible. If different advice can be extracted from the article, and yet ring true to the article's text, I'd like to hear it.

Also, the advice positively encourages men to play the martyr until they're so unhappy that they explode. Women do this too -- the traditional, "I gave up everything to make a life for you! I stopped working to have babies and raise a family and..." well, you get it. Both genders get utterly destroyed if they follow this awful advice.

I really hope I got it 100% wrong.

Listen, here is what happens when you try to be a "my wife/girlfriend controls the relationship" kind of guy.

Really, if you believe that the way to bliss is to allow your partner to always drive everything and constantly have their way, you are NUTS. That way lies madness. It's putting blind faith in a fallible person and shutting off your own judgment -- apparently because it's "nice" to allow some other person to do all the thinking, even when they're misguided, misinformed, or utterly inept. That's not teamwork, that's not a good marriage, and that's not manly.

 

[Mark Chance]

I really hope I got it 100% wrong.

You did. Isn't it great when one's hopes are realized? Also, notice how I answered your question without implying you might be an idiot for getting it wrong. Pretty clever, huh?

 

[aboyd]

Mark,

It'd be great if you could explain how. Maybe quote some of his words and explain how they lead to a theme that is opposite of what I interpreted? Thanks!

EDIT: Ah, I see that the author of the article is you. So yeah, you've taken offense that I think your article is a total failure. I'll go back to my other post and make it nicer, since I didn't realize it was you, and I certainly didn't want to start a flamewar. However, I don't see how I can change my opinion that the article's advice is terribly inept until I hear more about how you intended something other than what I got from it. Thanks for any explanation you can offer.

I'll get you started. How can the line, "Katrina gets to win when there's a conflict," be interpreted to mean anything other than Katrina gets to win during a conflict? And how is it sane to apply that advice 100% of the time, as the article suggests? What about the OP? What if the conflict is "I am going to commit adultery" or "I will no longer help raise the kids because parenthood doesn't suit me" or "I will have an abortion regardless of your moral/religious beliefs" or any of a million other common conflicts? In what world is it OK for the guy to say, "you win on that." People will ask for all sorts of unhealthy, self-indulgent stuff, and the idea that there is a blanket "they win" rule is incomprehensible to me. Thus, I need way more explanation.

Or take your example in part 2, where you suggest that if the "marriage debt" is going unpaid, doing dishes and helping her get her needs met will suddenly start her servicing you. Seriously, dude. That only works for you because your wife is awesome -- the majority of women (and men) are mere mortals who will fall far short, or simply take advantage. And who can blame them? You've fostered it.

The advice is just bizarre.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It'd be great if you could explain how. Maybe quote some of his words and explain how they lead to a theme that is opposite of what I interpreted? Thanks!

The concept is predicated on something

You love someone and they love you back.

And love means you want to do anything for that person and the fact that they love you means that they want to do anything for you.

I'ts not about lying and pretending that you're fine with everything - you love the other person, so you won't lie to them. And because you know they love you, you know that they'll want to know the truth and won't be unhappy with you for expressing it.

Combined this means you don't just do whatever you're told: if it upsets you, you tell the other person, and they make efforts to please you, and you come to the best agreement you can.

 

[fuzzlewump]

Mark,

It'd be great if you could explain how. Maybe quote some of his words and explain how they lead to a theme that is opposite of what I interpreted? Thanks!

EDIT: Ah, I see that the author of the article is you. So yeah, you've taken offense that I think your article is a total failure. I'll go back to my other post and make it nicer, since I didn't realize it was you, and I certainly didn't want to start a flamewar. However, I don't see how I can change my opinion that the article's advice is terribly inept until I hear more about how you intended something other than what I got from it. Thanks for any explanation you can offer.

I'll get you started. How can the line, "Katrina gets to win when there's a conflict," be interpreted to mean anything other than Katrina gets to win during a conflict? And how is it sane to apply that advice 100% of the time, as the article suggests? What about the OP? What if the conflict is "I am going to commit adultery" or "I will no longer help raise the kids because parenthood doesn't suit me" or "I will have an abortion regardless of your moral/religious beliefs" or any of a million other common conflicts? In what world is it OK for the guy to say, "you win on that." People will ask for all sorts of unhealthy, self-indulgent stuff, and the idea that there is a blanket "they win" rule is incomprehensible to me. Thus, I need way more explanation.

Or take your example in part 2, where you suggest that if the "marriage debt" is going unpaid, doing dishes and helping her get her needs met will suddenly start her servicing you. Seriously, dude. That only works for you because your wife is awesome -- the majority of women (and men) are mere mortals who will fall far short, or simply take advantage. And who can blame them? You've fostered it.

The advice is just bizarre.

"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?


I dunno.

 

[aboyd]

Saeviomagy, if that's the case, the article needs a rewrite, because it's not anywhere near as clear about it as you are. But even still, how in the world does that apply here? I mean... how would saying "Love her and she'll come around" help when the entire point is that they're in love (presumably, as they're getting married) and yet she didn't come around? And how does that reconcile with the article text, which states that it's all about letting the woman have her way on everything? It's utterly duplicitous to say, "By letting her have her way 100% of the time, I'll get my way." That's an oxymoron, or else it implies that one person in the relationship has lost him/her self and no longer has independent thoughts or direction.

Still, if the article said that, it'd at least be a concept to discuss, but the article doesn't even get far enough to assert that. It just says, "she gets her way" and poof, done. We're left to conclude that the author had some underlying thing that worked for him in mysterious ways that are unspoken.