@ Girls

Recently my fiance wrote a post about men and video games. Her contention is that men don't grow out of being boys because they still play video games in their twenties and thirties. This isn't really the case. One has nothing to do with the other. Men act the same way with video games as they do with any competitive sport or activity. What this does bring up is most girl's lack of understanding or acceptance of video games as a legitimate activity.

In college there was a sad sick cycle.

At the college I attended I was NEVER bored. If I wasn't sleeping, eating, studying, in class, or going out with friends there were always video games to fill in the gaps of time. What's that? fifteen minutes to kill till class? Lets get a quick round of Smash Brothers in. Oh, crap we are late for class.

But unfortunately, the girls did not have the same experience. They weren't playing video games, board (bored) games, reindeer games, or any games. They were sitting around waiting for the boys to call. Because every girl came to college with the same five chick flick movies, watched them the first day and sat around bored the rest of the year.

Now this is where the break down exists. The girls would call us or see us and we would be yelling and laughing and having a great time (because we were playing video games). They would say, "Hey, they are having a lot of fun. We want to have a lot of fun, lets invite them over." And so like kids being lured with lollipops, us guys would stop our fun and go over to hang out with the girls. I don't know why. It was the same every time. We would arrive and their would be the initial meet and greet with a little flirting mixed in. And then the energy would be promptly sucked out of the room as the guys realized that we had been tricked. This would usually come in the form of a comment like, "Wait! That's your TV! I thought it was a microwave." Or the famous, "So what are we going to do?" "I don't know what do you want to do?" Oh No....

There was nothing fun going on here. They were expecting us to provide entertainment for them. Unfortunately, most of our fun consisted of video games and doing things that girls won't do because they are insecure and won't do something that might look or make them look "silly." In a desperate panic we would peruse their movies only to find one copy of The Wedding Planner for each girl who roomed at that location. Not that ten people could watch a movie on the heart monitor they called a television set anyway. Then we knew we were screwed, because the girls would be frustrated with us that we weren't fun when we came over. And we couldn't just leave because that would be social suicide. Things would get so awkward that eventually we would just try and get on the girls nerves so they'd make us leave.

We really couldn't win, because sometimes they would call and hear us having fun and want to come over to be where the fun was at. Of course when they arrived we were playing video games. They would insist that video games were not fun so we'd stop playing and the night would take a down hill turn because they didn't have any new ideas, so then no one was having fun.

In the end all of this could be avoided if girls would view video games as a legitimate activity that is fun. Sure, you're not going to be good at it right away, but that's fun too. However, they think it is for kids. And because girls don't want to appear silly and they all want to be older and more sophisticated then they really are... everyone suffers. I personally think if girls played more video games they would be better friends. They would get the competition out of the way with Mortal Combat and then wouldn't have a lot of time on their hands to be petty.

Thank God at least my fiance likes Wii Sports.