Slashdot Mirror
Playing Games While Not Ruining Your Relationship?
Silicon Mike asks: "A nice sized group of us here at work recently picked up City of Heroes, and started playing together. While all of us were gamers to some extent, now we're all pretty addicted and want to play together online all the time. The problem some of us are running into is that our significant others aren't too happy with us gaming all the time. Other then the two obvious solutions (quit playing or dump the significant other) I'm wondering how other people have deal with it? I tried installing Zoo Tycoon on my other computer and saying 'Look honey, cute bears' but she just didn't bite."
Or obvious solution #3... Regular /.'s don't have to worry about this "problem", so why ask me^H^Hthem?
Hmmm.
I agree spend time with the SO at home and play at work!
Sig temporarily out of service.
Unless you find a woman who can handle you playing games like that most of the time while ignoring her, you're out of luck. Most women (I've found) like to be paid attention to.
:D
Besides, women are more fun to score with.
They both cost money, but I'd have to go with getting rid of the games (I know, blasphemy).
When you're 60 years old and remembering the great times of your life, no ones going to say, "You know, I should have dumped that old broad and played more video games..."
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If the two of you can't work out a comprimise (spoken or unspoken), then you really don't belong in a relationship with one another. Gaming isn't the only thing that's going to eat into your life in the next few years -- work, children, clubs, friends, PTAs, softball games, etc. will all potentially require some kind of balance if you're going to continue a workable relationship. So look at this as a test run.
Relationships are about cooperation -- they're about *not* just considering your own needs, but taking the other person into serious consideration. I used to play hours of Quake each day in college, but when we moved in together I realized I was ignoring her and I cut way the heck back. Now, I play where I have a chance; it's not a set schedule, just something we worked out (you can't live together without having time alone, IMO). I'll play some GTA while she reads or watches a chick flick on HBO. She understands it's something I enjoy, but I understand that I can't blow the unhealthy amount of time I used to on it. Welcome to adult life.
Anyhow, my girlfriend (er, fiance... gotta get used to that before the wedding) is more important to me than numbing my mind in front of the Xbox. If yours isn't, well, maybe it's time to cut her loose and pursue your real interests.
Weirdly, I actually found myself on the other side of this one back with Girlfriend 1.0; she started playing MUDs our freshman year of college and got absolutely addicted. Our three-year relationship went right into the crapper because she *obviously* preferred being in character in her little fantasy world to me (or reality in general for that matter -- she flunked out of school because she wasn't bothering with classes). I suppose that gave me a bit more empathy in terms of this situation...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I had the exact same problem, and for me the choice between my relationship and gaming was fairly simple: do both.
:)
I was involved in a competitive gaming league which held matches once a week. Even though our team played in a fairly low bracket in the league, we still took the time to practice before we played our weekly match. It got to the point where I was investing a significant percentage of my free time gaming and it began to wear on my significant other.
Eventually I said to my team "hey guys, I can practice once or twice a week for X hours and play in our match." That worked out fine and I had a lot of fun playing. But more importantly, I kept my relationship and gaming time well-balanced.
If you feel like spending significantly MORE time gaming than being with your significant other, then take a step back and decide whether one or the other is really worth it. I'd choose the gal, myself.
I've been fortunate enough to have a girlfriend who will accompany me to LAN parties and put up some respectable numbers on the fragboard.
And fill in the blank with any habbit except maybe "flowers buyer"
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Just play the game, man. Jeez, who the hell wears the pants in *your* relationship?
I think I speak for a collective 47.6% of all slashdotters when I say... WHA-PSSSH!!!
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
In general, you don't want to make your girlfriend feel like she's 2nd place. For example, don't go straight to the computer after getting home. Sit down, chat with her, let the day kinda die down before going to a game. This alone will make a much bigger difference than simply cutting back the number of hours involved. Sadly I found this out the hard way once.
And fill in the blank with any habbit except maybe "flowers buyer" "Cunnilingus giver" would rate highly with the ladies, too. :)
A little over a year ago, my wife and I had a baby. She takes up the majority of my time now, but my wife and I made an agreement that we'd each get one night a week to ourselves. I typically play EQ (yes still addicted after 4 and 1/2 years) on my night, and she plays Quake 3 on hers.
Even with other things: I hate doing laundry, and she hates to cook. So I cook and she does the laundry (mostly because I'm a much better cook though).
It is all about compromise, but as long as you can both come to an agreement that works it would be an issue.
-i
Mod this comment up. I love gaming as much as the next person, but reality check here: relationships are about sacrifice and compromise. In the comparison of gaming and your SO, if you don't recognize the more important of the two is the SO, then get out -- you ain't ready for a serious relationship, to be honest.
Don't get me wrong, that's not a slag -- for some people, their friends, online or in the flesh, are more important than being in a committed relationship. Just don't leave the other person in limbo.
Also, recognize the difference between "friends" and "gaming" -- is it the game you want to play, or the friends you want to play with? If it's the former, time to evaluate your priorities.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
After having over a year of my life sucked into Ultima Online I can tell you from experience that you want to stay away from the MMORPG genre.
These games are specifically designed to maximise addiction and require as much of your time as is possible. They are designed to make it impossible to just sit down for 15 minutes and have a fun little game.
There is a whole world out there with actual real things that games only exist to simulate. Computer games are great while they are augmenting your real life. They are good for a little off time every now and then.
When you reach a point where your wife/girlfriend/whatever feels neglected because of a video game, you need to question your priorities. Perhaps the proper question isn't how to get her off your back, but rather, is this game worth the time I am spending?
We made $2.15 per hour. Operators would wait for someone to call to have a disk changed, and we would mechanically change the disk and run the predecessors of fsck (icheck, ncheck, dcheck, etc.). The systems ran Version 6 Unix, and there were two VAXes which ran 4BSD.
There were several ways to entertain yourself while waiting for a call to do something. You could do your homework. You could try to learn more about Unix and C, which they didn't teach in the college because they had little practical application at the time in the eyes of the CS department. Or you could play rogue, an interactive computer game that ran with really primitive graphics on the VT100 terminal.
Most of my colleauges chose to play rogue. I read the Unix and C documentation, which was only one book and about a foot of papers at the time. I had some computer programming experience, including assembler, but no formal classes in programming, as I was a communication arts student. But once I had read all of the available literature on Unix and C, I was able to get a job as an assistant systems programmer and start moving up in the lab. That eventually got me to Pixar.
The folks who played rogue? They did OK, I guess. But I think they would have done much better if they'd taken the opportunity as seriously as I did.
Look around. There is probably something to do that would be much more important, and eventually more fun, than the game-playing. You only get one life. Start living it.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
My wife and I played through both Ratchet and Clank I and II, and then moved on to other, cooler games afterward. I've been patient, and also let her hold the controller a lot, and now she games more than I do. Even though she won't retain the same level of interest as I do, I'm sure she will have a continued appreciation for my desire to play sometimes.
Depends on what "cut back" means. If cut back means going from playing many hours a night, every night, to playing a few hours a week, I agree. However if cutting back means going from playing a few hours a week to nothing, then I think it's time to have a talk with the SO and maybe break up.
Why? Well, as you said, relationships are give and take. Pat of that is both of you need time to do things that YOU enjoy, even if the other does not. Those should, of course, be limited, but people need time for their own fun even in a commited relationship. If your SO can't handle that, you probably are in an unhealthy relationship.
I know far too many people, mean and women, where their life is all about what the other person wants. If the SO doesn't like it, it has to go entirely. If the SO want to do it, then they do. Not a healthy way to be.
So if a woman wants you to cut back your gaming to not be the dominant activity in your life, that's a good thing. If she wants you to cut it out entirely, that's not and you need to talk about it.
Compulsive anything (even cunnilingus) isn't going to work in a relationship unless you both have the same compulsion. And then while it's a relationship, it's certainly not healthy.
Now City of Heroes. I didn't like it for the first few days(because from what I saw of the gameplay, it sucked...but that was because it was just for the first few levels, so the combat seemed slow because of lame recharge times)...so it looked like he was choosing a crappy game over me.
But now I'm into it. And I'm lucky that my boyfriend encourages the inner gamer geek in me. He helps me and suggests strategies for when I'm/we're playing Soul Caliber 2, Diablo 2, City of Heroes, etc. etc. I say I'm lucky because he could just as easily be protective of his Xbox or computer(mine's old and can't handle much more than Alice). I also got over my aversion to City of Heroes because we had a talk about it. I made a big assumption that was wrong: he was choosing the game over me. But the reality, he said, was that he was choosing the game over doing nothing. I was afraid to speak up and ask to do things with him because I assumed I would annoy him and interrupt his levelling. Turns out that isn't the case; it was just a vicious cycle of him playing, me assuming he doesn't wanna be with me, me not saying we should do something, him assuming I don't wanna do anything, so he played the game. Luckily it was only a few days before that was straightened out. :)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of significant others.
I'm right there with you. My SO absolutely HATES gaming... but she'll talk on the phone for 6 hours straight given the opportunity. Both of us are happy.
:)
The only difference is after she's done she actually thinks I'm interested in how ugly her best friends brother's cousin's roomate's nephew's baby is while I'm fully aware she couldn't give a crap if my Necromancer leveled !twice! tonight.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
15 years of sacrifice seem like an awful long time...
Maybe you're just deliberately missing the point, but just in case...
It doesn't mean 15 years of sacrifice. It means that for 15 years, we both have made some sacrifices. For example, I don't go out with my friends every night like I used to. And sometimes I stay home so SHE can go out with friends. I don't even know what it would mean to be married without any sacrifices. That sounds like, "I'm doin' what I want, baby - if you don't like it, too bad."
I've got to agree with ChuckleBug here. I got married, then started playing DAoC a year later. It got to be 2 hrs a night, then 4, then 4 a night and every waking moment on the weekends.
;)
I wasn't paying attention to the wife, I wasn't doing housework, I wasn't cooking... nada, just a gaming freak for a few months. Almost had to get a divorce, mainly because I would jump down her neck if she tried to kiss me good night or something that would interrupt play.
Finally recognized the signs of addiction and scaled back, got to playing 2 hours per night, and not at all on weekends. Then, thanks to the mechanics of DAoC, I couldn't accomplish much and I couldn't talk to the players that I wanted to talk to in 2 hours, so it made it easier to quit.
MMORPGs are the devil on relationships because you can't always just turn it off because there's always something to do in game before you turn it off.
The best thing to do, is get some single player games, or, even better, get in to FPS's where you can log in, go in Rambo mode, or just follow a couple of guys around and get the fragging out of your system for a couple of hours a week.
But if you have any addictive tendencies, and have the propensity to melt into your computer game, cut out your MMORPG right away, and trade it in on a FPS, single player.
Or, even better, spend your evenings drinking, talking and laughing with your SO. You did marry them for some reason.
This is actually a current problem of my current SO (and avid slashdotter) with Ragnarok Online. Don't get me wrong, I am such a gaming chick. I've been known to spend long periods of time glued to my laptop til the wee hours of the morning. However, he plays during the day while I'm at work, then wants to play all night as well. It's a &*^%@&^%& battle to tear him away from the computer to do something other than slay anime monsters. It won't do anything to seriously jeopardize our relationship, but damn, it's annoying. I work for sometimes 10 hours days staring at a computer.. do I really want to drive an hour home, then stare at a computer RIGHT away til 5am? Not likely. And a previous poster then said making your girlfriend feel like 2nd place is bad.. they were dead-on. Compromise with her. Watch a girlie chick flick with her in exchange for some game time, or stay with her til she falls asleep, play for a bit, then return and sleep yourself. If she really knows you and your geeky gaming addicition, she can't get TOO mad.
Your balls called... they said when you're ready to play CS again they'll be waiting.
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
It is my experience that men and woman deal with daily life stress in different ways, ironically they are two very different non-symbiotic ways.
Women deal with their lives by talking about things that delve into the minutae of their daily existence.
Men like to get really absorbed into something that doesn't envolve talking or an excessive amount of conscious thought like a game or tv.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
dude, stand up for yourself. i mean, outside of slashdot. you are supposed to have a partnership in a marriage, if you feel stepped upon (the way you describe it, that appears to be the case), speak up and get it out in the open and deal with it.
if you want respect, act respectably.
Frankly, I'm the only one in the house who ever finishes our games. My husband buys them, for the most part, but I'm the one who actually plays them all the way through. Personally, I can't stand The Sims - I'm up for just about anything else though. We met in-game, and we've played together consistently over the years - started in EQ, went to DAoC, now City of Heroes... and all the off-line games in-between. He can beat me on some of the fighting games (I still rule DOA though), and I kick his ass in strategy. I think, counting back, that I've actually been playing games longer than he has. My whole family played together (ok, minus my Mom) and so I think we got an early start on being able to balance games with life.
:)
Admittedly, it's not like you can expect whoever you fall for to have the same interests... so for the standard reality-check - make sure your girl's getting enough time, and that your gaming isn't taking away from your relationship... then Hero away. A couple other things to remember:
1) The game will be there when you go back. If life's calling, hang up on the game... so maybe you lose some exp, or you annoy your group - there are far worse things to lose than that.
2) Try to make sure that you're not losing time - telling someone you'll be home (or will meet them, pick them up, etc.) "in an hour" and coming home three hours later is being an ass no matter what you were doing. I used to be terrible about that.
3) Take care of your responsibilities out-of-game. The game is more likely to be the focus of anger for your partner if you're not doing your share of housework, food prep, dog feeding, all that stuff. (It also means that your gaming time is much less likely to be interrupted with timed demands to do chores.)
Good luck, and it is possible.
~ Leilah