shimrra
10-16-2008, 12:31 PM
by Anonymous Boyfriend
The following article was sent to us by one of our readers, who has gone through multiple girlfriends and is now sitting on the edge of a major breakup. I asked him to write down his feelings and send them over, the following is what I received word for word. His real name must remain anonymous to protect his relationship, or what's left of it.
"I know what you’re thinking. Your thinking, “how can a video game affect your relationship at all?” Well, be a little patient and I’ll tell you. Note that this is not a personal stab at video games in general, so I can only hope that the first person shooters and the real time strategy games don’t come hunting me down in the night. Hopefully no Silent Hill nurses are hiding in my closet this evening, or Master Chief doesn’t come barreling through my balcony window with a personal vendetta on his hands.
Back to the story at hand; I’ve been living with my girlfriend for nearly a year now. We have momentous moments of romantic attraction throughout days of movie watching and dinner cooking. We’ve shared the bathroom like two newlyweds might, equal mirror distance between us, and no clutter on the sink counter. We’ve even split the chores seemingly down the middle, with designated days set specifically for cleaning. I remove the trash from their prospective bins. She sorts the laundry and places shirts on hangers. We even break the bills in half, which a number of my friends and family find strange for some reason.
http://www.laundryhampers.biz/images/woman.jpg
Overall, we’ve lived a good life of coexistence together. Very few quarrels take place, and when they do, we make a point to settle them quickly and calmly. After a short amount of debate, we even decided to sign an extension on our lease recently, for fear of hiked rent prices if we waited any longer. Unfortunately, some minor changes among the household have rendered a few abstract polygons between us as of late. If our relationship was a Sony PSP, you could say that a dead pixel recently appeared on our gorgeous, nearly perfect screen.
This dead pixel began as a MacBook. See, my girlfriend is a very needy woman, and she likes to get what she wants. And typically, she does get what she wants. You can call this spoiled, or you can call it a magical, maestro working of ingenious word placement during conversation with two unsuspecting grandparents. Either way, she makes it work. After having tremendous amounts of difficulty with an older laptop (by old, I mean two whole-hearted years old), my lovely girlfriend decided that it was time to let go. She knew immediately what brand of laptop she wanted to replace her trusty Sony Vaio. She longed for a MacBook, not because she’d ever had one before, but because she loved the Apple style. Her devout, incurable hunger for Apple products appeared in years past thanks to the innovative iPod, and only recently became undeniable when she purchased an iPhone.
After making quick work of her grandparents valiant effort to resist her charm, my girlfriend purchased her beloved MacBook and the machine immediately began its reign of terror. From its initial revealing on our Ikea coffee table in the living room, the MacBook had grasped my girlfriend’s sub consciousness with a grip unmatched by any living thing. As I could only sit back and watch, my girlfriend began spending more and more time with her freshly acquired laptop, and less time with me. My sadness shined through my eyes.
Although mortally wounded due to being replaced by a sexy, extremely pale machine, I agreed to format her disowned Vaio and attempt to sell it on Craigslist. After multiple postings, and an uncountable number of phishing responses, we decided that perhaps trading the disbanded laptop for something of equal value might prove to be a more successful venture. My girlfriend, still drooling at the mouth to get everything her little heart desired, told me that she’d love to have her own Xbox 360. She explained that she did not enjoy having to constantly hog my own 360, and this way we could both play games together.
I agreed, and made the advertised post. After only a short evening of waiting, we’d already received a number of responses with very promising potential transactions. Unfortunately, an email response does not guarantee that the respondee will answer their phone when I call about the inquiry. I made multiple attempts to contact interested individuals. One simply did not answer or ever call back, one actually texted a denied response to me via text message, and finally, one agreed to meet the following day at Barnes & Noble. Obviously, my girlfriend was ecstatic with joy. After a tumultuous evening of giddy tossing and turning in bed, we arose, prepared the laptop with a good cleansing, and even decided to include a mini printer with the transaction. We were confident in the trade, but wanted to insure that our offer would be too good to turn down. As we headed towards the well respected and always busy bookstore, I could not help but feel that we were doing something illegal. The aura of our impending encounter felt dense with eerie oddness. Of course, my girlfriend showed no such signs of uneasiness. She simply wanted her own Xbox 360.
http://www.popcitymedia.com/galleries/Default/Neighborhoods/Squirrel%20Hill/shop/barnes_and_noble_450.jpg
As we approached the couple, I stood behind with my arms folded. I’d decided on my own to act as a bodyguard, upping my intimidation factor as much as possible. This tactic did not seem to work, as both of the 360 dealers were employed by the military and not easily intimidated. I conceded partial defeat and we approached the indoor Starbucks. The male dealer tested the laptop much more quickly than anticipated, and nearly forgot to check the WiFi connection. I reminded him to do so, and he did. His quickness to satisfaction frightened me.
We walked to the dealer car, and he presented us with the nearly new Xbox 360 box of grandeur. My girlfriend inspected every inch of every component for damages. Upon satisfaction that took much longer than the dealers, we parted ways swiftly for fear of somebody changing their mind. No one did. We arrived, and instantly tested the 360. The color was funny, until I realized that she’d plugged the wrong cords into the wrong holes. This problem was quickly rectified.
Not too soon after her acquisition of an Xbox 360 and MacBook, I began to question whether doing so was such a good idea after all. Sure, I loved the fact that now I could walk into the bedroom and play on my very own 360 anytime I wanted to. Sure, I loved the fact that my girlfriend had started playing video games as often as I do. Of course I loved the fact that my girlfriend was now acquiring games that I also wanted to play, which saved me money by not having to buy or rent the games myself. Sure, all of this was great, but the effect it was having on our original relationship was not so fantastic.
I stood back and watched as my girlfriend would come home from work, plop down onto the couch, and turn on the 360 and MacBook simultaneously. She’d begin a delayed conversation with someone via iChat, while playing Beautiful Katamari with somebody else. Before I realized it, my girlfriend was not only gaming more than I was, but she was being more internet social than I was. I never thought this would happen.
My shock and awe at the power of those two pieces of technology quickly turned into a foreboding jealousy. I found myself suddenly wishing desperate, despicable things onto the well being of these alluring machines. During one unstoppable fit of rage, I even threatened the MacBook out loud, voicing my desire to pitch it over our balcony. My girlfriend only gasped at me, with eyes peering wide open in disbelief. I felt shame. I even apologized to the MacBook.
And now, thanks to the powers of Xbox Live, my girlfriend has a list of Live friends. And every single one of those friends just so happens to be male. I’m not sure whether I should be more jealous of the boys she talks to constantly via Xbox Live, or the Xbox 360 itself. At times, I get tempted to join her room in Halo, cause a big mess with a few misplaced plasma grenades, and then leave. Or I could even dive in using a 48 hour trial account, befriend her, and launch a flurry of curse words at those boys when I finally get invited to a game of GTA IV. Do those voice masks still exist?
http://badgirlgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/achievementlockedpanties.jpg
Now, I feel an irking urge to constantly cushion my Gamerscore. Because of my girlfriend’s nonstop gaming binge, she’s started accumulating Gamerpoints more quickly than she used to buy a new pair of shoes. Every time I walk by the living room T.V. her Gamerscore seems just a smidge higher than it was before. Between my glares at the Xbox 360 and MacBook, I can’t help but wonder exactly how she is raising her score so fast. Are there cheat codes for this type of thing? It’s almost as if I believe that as long as my Gamerscore is higher than hers, my Xbox 360 is better than hers also. If I just maintain the top spot in our household, I might still be able to maintain a grip on our strangely skewed relationship.
Between the time she spends on her MacBook and her Xbox 360, she hardly has time for me anymore. I might be acting silly, but you’ll understand one day. The hobby of gaming is main stream, and will only continue to work its way more and more into the households of America. Having a female gamer as a girlfriend is wonderful, but only as long as she remains less of a gamer than me."
Link (http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_4856/Video_Games_are_Killing_my_Relationship)
The following article was sent to us by one of our readers, who has gone through multiple girlfriends and is now sitting on the edge of a major breakup. I asked him to write down his feelings and send them over, the following is what I received word for word. His real name must remain anonymous to protect his relationship, or what's left of it.
"I know what you’re thinking. Your thinking, “how can a video game affect your relationship at all?” Well, be a little patient and I’ll tell you. Note that this is not a personal stab at video games in general, so I can only hope that the first person shooters and the real time strategy games don’t come hunting me down in the night. Hopefully no Silent Hill nurses are hiding in my closet this evening, or Master Chief doesn’t come barreling through my balcony window with a personal vendetta on his hands.
Back to the story at hand; I’ve been living with my girlfriend for nearly a year now. We have momentous moments of romantic attraction throughout days of movie watching and dinner cooking. We’ve shared the bathroom like two newlyweds might, equal mirror distance between us, and no clutter on the sink counter. We’ve even split the chores seemingly down the middle, with designated days set specifically for cleaning. I remove the trash from their prospective bins. She sorts the laundry and places shirts on hangers. We even break the bills in half, which a number of my friends and family find strange for some reason.
http://www.laundryhampers.biz/images/woman.jpg
Overall, we’ve lived a good life of coexistence together. Very few quarrels take place, and when they do, we make a point to settle them quickly and calmly. After a short amount of debate, we even decided to sign an extension on our lease recently, for fear of hiked rent prices if we waited any longer. Unfortunately, some minor changes among the household have rendered a few abstract polygons between us as of late. If our relationship was a Sony PSP, you could say that a dead pixel recently appeared on our gorgeous, nearly perfect screen.
This dead pixel began as a MacBook. See, my girlfriend is a very needy woman, and she likes to get what she wants. And typically, she does get what she wants. You can call this spoiled, or you can call it a magical, maestro working of ingenious word placement during conversation with two unsuspecting grandparents. Either way, she makes it work. After having tremendous amounts of difficulty with an older laptop (by old, I mean two whole-hearted years old), my lovely girlfriend decided that it was time to let go. She knew immediately what brand of laptop she wanted to replace her trusty Sony Vaio. She longed for a MacBook, not because she’d ever had one before, but because she loved the Apple style. Her devout, incurable hunger for Apple products appeared in years past thanks to the innovative iPod, and only recently became undeniable when she purchased an iPhone.
After making quick work of her grandparents valiant effort to resist her charm, my girlfriend purchased her beloved MacBook and the machine immediately began its reign of terror. From its initial revealing on our Ikea coffee table in the living room, the MacBook had grasped my girlfriend’s sub consciousness with a grip unmatched by any living thing. As I could only sit back and watch, my girlfriend began spending more and more time with her freshly acquired laptop, and less time with me. My sadness shined through my eyes.
Although mortally wounded due to being replaced by a sexy, extremely pale machine, I agreed to format her disowned Vaio and attempt to sell it on Craigslist. After multiple postings, and an uncountable number of phishing responses, we decided that perhaps trading the disbanded laptop for something of equal value might prove to be a more successful venture. My girlfriend, still drooling at the mouth to get everything her little heart desired, told me that she’d love to have her own Xbox 360. She explained that she did not enjoy having to constantly hog my own 360, and this way we could both play games together.
I agreed, and made the advertised post. After only a short evening of waiting, we’d already received a number of responses with very promising potential transactions. Unfortunately, an email response does not guarantee that the respondee will answer their phone when I call about the inquiry. I made multiple attempts to contact interested individuals. One simply did not answer or ever call back, one actually texted a denied response to me via text message, and finally, one agreed to meet the following day at Barnes & Noble. Obviously, my girlfriend was ecstatic with joy. After a tumultuous evening of giddy tossing and turning in bed, we arose, prepared the laptop with a good cleansing, and even decided to include a mini printer with the transaction. We were confident in the trade, but wanted to insure that our offer would be too good to turn down. As we headed towards the well respected and always busy bookstore, I could not help but feel that we were doing something illegal. The aura of our impending encounter felt dense with eerie oddness. Of course, my girlfriend showed no such signs of uneasiness. She simply wanted her own Xbox 360.
http://www.popcitymedia.com/galleries/Default/Neighborhoods/Squirrel%20Hill/shop/barnes_and_noble_450.jpg
As we approached the couple, I stood behind with my arms folded. I’d decided on my own to act as a bodyguard, upping my intimidation factor as much as possible. This tactic did not seem to work, as both of the 360 dealers were employed by the military and not easily intimidated. I conceded partial defeat and we approached the indoor Starbucks. The male dealer tested the laptop much more quickly than anticipated, and nearly forgot to check the WiFi connection. I reminded him to do so, and he did. His quickness to satisfaction frightened me.
We walked to the dealer car, and he presented us with the nearly new Xbox 360 box of grandeur. My girlfriend inspected every inch of every component for damages. Upon satisfaction that took much longer than the dealers, we parted ways swiftly for fear of somebody changing their mind. No one did. We arrived, and instantly tested the 360. The color was funny, until I realized that she’d plugged the wrong cords into the wrong holes. This problem was quickly rectified.
Not too soon after her acquisition of an Xbox 360 and MacBook, I began to question whether doing so was such a good idea after all. Sure, I loved the fact that now I could walk into the bedroom and play on my very own 360 anytime I wanted to. Sure, I loved the fact that my girlfriend had started playing video games as often as I do. Of course I loved the fact that my girlfriend was now acquiring games that I also wanted to play, which saved me money by not having to buy or rent the games myself. Sure, all of this was great, but the effect it was having on our original relationship was not so fantastic.
I stood back and watched as my girlfriend would come home from work, plop down onto the couch, and turn on the 360 and MacBook simultaneously. She’d begin a delayed conversation with someone via iChat, while playing Beautiful Katamari with somebody else. Before I realized it, my girlfriend was not only gaming more than I was, but she was being more internet social than I was. I never thought this would happen.
My shock and awe at the power of those two pieces of technology quickly turned into a foreboding jealousy. I found myself suddenly wishing desperate, despicable things onto the well being of these alluring machines. During one unstoppable fit of rage, I even threatened the MacBook out loud, voicing my desire to pitch it over our balcony. My girlfriend only gasped at me, with eyes peering wide open in disbelief. I felt shame. I even apologized to the MacBook.
And now, thanks to the powers of Xbox Live, my girlfriend has a list of Live friends. And every single one of those friends just so happens to be male. I’m not sure whether I should be more jealous of the boys she talks to constantly via Xbox Live, or the Xbox 360 itself. At times, I get tempted to join her room in Halo, cause a big mess with a few misplaced plasma grenades, and then leave. Or I could even dive in using a 48 hour trial account, befriend her, and launch a flurry of curse words at those boys when I finally get invited to a game of GTA IV. Do those voice masks still exist?
http://badgirlgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/achievementlockedpanties.jpg
Now, I feel an irking urge to constantly cushion my Gamerscore. Because of my girlfriend’s nonstop gaming binge, she’s started accumulating Gamerpoints more quickly than she used to buy a new pair of shoes. Every time I walk by the living room T.V. her Gamerscore seems just a smidge higher than it was before. Between my glares at the Xbox 360 and MacBook, I can’t help but wonder exactly how she is raising her score so fast. Are there cheat codes for this type of thing? It’s almost as if I believe that as long as my Gamerscore is higher than hers, my Xbox 360 is better than hers also. If I just maintain the top spot in our household, I might still be able to maintain a grip on our strangely skewed relationship.
Between the time she spends on her MacBook and her Xbox 360, she hardly has time for me anymore. I might be acting silly, but you’ll understand one day. The hobby of gaming is main stream, and will only continue to work its way more and more into the households of America. Having a female gamer as a girlfriend is wonderful, but only as long as she remains less of a gamer than me."
Link (http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_4856/Video_Games_are_Killing_my_Relationship)