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I want to share my experience convinced that there are others in similar situation which might benefit from this, and maybe give something back.
I'm that stage of life where I already live with my girlfriend, no kids, but we behave more or less like a married couple. Unsurprisingly this condition changed the way I play videogames.
When you are a nerd lone wolf, you tend to develop various hobbies, which may or may not involve other people, but that primarily are between you and the thing you interact with. I grew up playing guitar, videogames, modelling, drawing and later programming.
When two of this kind meet, they might share their passions, have nice discussions, and then sit and do the hobby with full concentration. One enjoys the other people company, but retains the ability of staying on his own and still be happily entertained. Most of my friends are of this kind, and I really enjoy their company.
Then, let's define a very general category of people, which could be called the non-nerds; those who never really developed individual hobbies, and always relied on the interaction with other people to be entertained.
When you form a couple, there are compromises you do. These are described as "since I like to stay with you, I will bend this or that aspect so that life together is better". Usually, with good communication, this process becomes some sort of self organizing haggling process which produces a certain balance.
One subtle aspect though, is how to handle the free time and the hobbies. Ideally, a couple decides to spend some time with a common activity, and some time with individual interests. This however is difficult if one of the two is in the non-nerd category: either he/she has no hobbies, or lacks motivation, or has no available friends.
In my experience the balance between individual and common time depends on the total free time available. If you have a very busy period at work and do late evenings or even work full nights, for the good of your relationship you'd better to spend all the remaining time in common activities, or soon the next common activity will be a couple of hours discussion on how the state of the relationship recently deteriorated...
Among my hobbies, one I love is to play videogames. I recently divided videogames into two categories: relationship safe vs relatinship dangerous games.
The former category contains all games which:
In my case, I found that quake live 1on1 is a perfect relationship safe option. I can do my matches without interruption, but then still be there if my girlfriend wants something etc.
The latter cathegory (opposite of the former) are games which:
In here I put both online clan play, and most of the single player games. I have tons of very good games I never finished because I was forced to discontinuous play, and later I never caught up. The most recent one is Mass Effect 2. These are games I would play for 6+ hours a day, piling up dirty dishes, emptying the fridge, forgetting to bring the trash outside. I know no other way to really enjoy them.
My experience is that the only safe way to handle the relationship dangerous games is to take days off work if you can, or simply renounce to them. Squeezing them in the evenings stealing time from the common activity time will not work, as you won't fully enjoy the game, and will cause pressure in the couple. I am sad I cannot play certain games as I did before. I can have a couple of free evening, but that's not enough, so I'm sure I won't finish mass effect 2, as I did not finish fallout 3, back to Vampire Bloodlines...
To finish with a happy note, my girlfriend developed a passion to quake live. She sits next to me, coaching me (wonder why my timing is very good sometimes? :p) and watches ESL cheering for fox and stermy. Tonight I will do the mass effect 2 test. I will ask her to play the game for an hour, then tell me her impression. I have little hope she will like it, but it's worth trying.
I'm that stage of life where I already live with my girlfriend, no kids, but we behave more or less like a married couple. Unsurprisingly this condition changed the way I play videogames.
When you are a nerd lone wolf, you tend to develop various hobbies, which may or may not involve other people, but that primarily are between you and the thing you interact with. I grew up playing guitar, videogames, modelling, drawing and later programming.
When two of this kind meet, they might share their passions, have nice discussions, and then sit and do the hobby with full concentration. One enjoys the other people company, but retains the ability of staying on his own and still be happily entertained. Most of my friends are of this kind, and I really enjoy their company.
Then, let's define a very general category of people, which could be called the non-nerds; those who never really developed individual hobbies, and always relied on the interaction with other people to be entertained.
When you form a couple, there are compromises you do. These are described as "since I like to stay with you, I will bend this or that aspect so that life together is better". Usually, with good communication, this process becomes some sort of self organizing haggling process which produces a certain balance.
One subtle aspect though, is how to handle the free time and the hobbies. Ideally, a couple decides to spend some time with a common activity, and some time with individual interests. This however is difficult if one of the two is in the non-nerd category: either he/she has no hobbies, or lacks motivation, or has no available friends.
In my experience the balance between individual and common time depends on the total free time available. If you have a very busy period at work and do late evenings or even work full nights, for the good of your relationship you'd better to spend all the remaining time in common activities, or soon the next common activity will be a couple of hours discussion on how the state of the relationship recently deteriorated...
Among my hobbies, one I love is to play videogames. I recently divided videogames into two categories: relationship safe vs relatinship dangerous games.
The former category contains all games which:
- Do not require time to get into the atmosphere
- Can be harmlessly paused, or have short periods of play between which you can interact outside the game.
- Do not suffer too much from you not playing them for days.
- Do not require you to coordinate with others, fix dates, etc.
In my case, I found that quake live 1on1 is a perfect relationship safe option. I can do my matches without interruption, but then still be there if my girlfriend wants something etc.
The latter cathegory (opposite of the former) are games which:
- Require time to get you into the atmosphere.
- Are likely abandoned if you stop playing them for a while.
- Require coordination with others, weekly training, etc.
In here I put both online clan play, and most of the single player games. I have tons of very good games I never finished because I was forced to discontinuous play, and later I never caught up. The most recent one is Mass Effect 2. These are games I would play for 6+ hours a day, piling up dirty dishes, emptying the fridge, forgetting to bring the trash outside. I know no other way to really enjoy them.
My experience is that the only safe way to handle the relationship dangerous games is to take days off work if you can, or simply renounce to them. Squeezing them in the evenings stealing time from the common activity time will not work, as you won't fully enjoy the game, and will cause pressure in the couple. I am sad I cannot play certain games as I did before. I can have a couple of free evening, but that's not enough, so I'm sure I won't finish mass effect 2, as I did not finish fallout 3, back to Vampire Bloodlines...
To finish with a happy note, my girlfriend developed a passion to quake live. She sits next to me, coaching me (wonder why my timing is very good sometimes? :p) and watches ESL cheering for fox and stermy. Tonight I will do the mass effect 2 test. I will ask her to play the game for an hour, then tell me her impression. I have little hope she will like it, but it's worth trying.
Edited by Memento_Mori at 11:24 CST, 17 February 2010 - 10246 Hits
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