Today I was invited to a board games night with some friends of a co-worker. I conveniently wore my Princess Leia hoodie, and we were playing X-Wing 1 ship vs 1 ship matches. It was a pretty fun game, although I don't think the game is quite balanced for 1v1 ships. Also, my opponent didn't seem all that keen in playing. I meet one couple there, the husband was a gamer, and the wife (my opponent) a non-gamer.
To be honest, I feel like that dynamic makes me feel incredibly oversensitive, but I can't help but worry. I know that there's a lot more to their relationship that I don't know about, but in those situations, I feel like the "Cool Girl". Obviously, it's not true, but all they see of me at that point is someone who enjoys games, and when I am, and their partner isn't, I sometimes sense some resentment.
So I ejected out of my TIE Bomber as soon as the game was done, and fled.
Dante was the first one to call me a "unicorn": the mythical girl that games. I took it as a compliment, like, "Hey, I actually do have a great quality!" I may have gone somewhat overboard in making it my "thing", even to the point of dismissing some of my fellow female gamers. A fact that makes me cringe now, but I do recognise that it did form a large part of my personality. And to be honest, it somewhat worked. Not in the romantic department, it was completely rubbish for that, but in that I got to make a ton of friends who were interested in the same thing that I was interested in. Every now and again, I'd hear the comment, "Why can't my girlfriend play games like you?"
Admittedly, and again, I say this in shame, I took it as a compliment. "Hey, look at me, I'm so awesome, all the guys must want me." But it was a short-lived one, as my seemingly never-ending single status would remind me. However, I tried to be helpful. "Why don't you get her to roll a character and we'll power level her up to 60?" or "Here are some more casual games that she can start with, that I really enjoy." It didn't seem to work, and once, I thought to myself, "If you hate being with her so much, why don't you dump her and date someone who does game?" That one time, I checked his Facebook page, saw a photo of his incredibly hot girlfriend, and decided to hold my tongue. Cynical of me, I know.
Now I'm starting to wonder if it even is that big a deal. MrFodder is really into fighting games, and thought I've played a bit of Smash Bros, and played Skull Girls until I got stuck on one of the tutorial levels and started getting blisters on my thumbs, I'm rubbish at it, and don't put all that much time into it. On the other hand, MrFodder has delved into Dota 2 a bit, and does feel the compulsion to play every now and again, but also doesn't play nearly as often as I do. And even though we've only been married for a few months, for the entire time we've been together, I think it has worked for us. We both have enough friends who are willing to play the games we want, and when we do want to play a game together, we usually end up playing MMOs. So I should really stop wondering if other people are resentful of the fact that their partner doesn't play games, and I do, because there are tons of other factors in play.
On the train ride home, I realised I was being an idiot, and so I messaged me co-worker asking if it was OK if I went to another games night event in the future. Hopefully he says yes.
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