Gaming With The Girlfriend

I feel I should begin with a small disclaimer that this series of blogs is not intended to be a misogynistic rant about girls and gaming - there are those out there prepared to troll their potential readership in order to boost page views, I am not one of them. What follows should be considered nothing more than a whimsical account of my experiences in getting my girlfriend interested in modern day gaming.

And if you're reading this dear; I'm sorry!

If, like me, many people consider you an expert in a particular field - I prefer the more modest term 'experienced', but the effect is the same - it can be extremely frustrating explaining the simplest of concept to a complete newcomer. During the week, that role involves fielding inane technical queries from clueless users; but recently my weekends have required me to switch the focus of my tuition to matters of gaming.

With gaming being a significant part of my life for two decades, it was almost inevitable that my girlfriend would begin to take an interest; it was either that or I was liable to be spending my evenings alone.

My Apprentice - named so for both her role as my Gaming Padawan and due to her preferred Dungeon Defenders character - grew up with three brothers, two of who regularly indulged in gaming; in fact it's not unknown for them to still spend all evening shut in their respective rooms with controllers in their hands. As her brothers were less than keen to share their consoles, my girlfriend's play time was somewhat limited; some time after we met, she confessed that her main achievements consisted of: watching one brother playing most of the Final Fantasy games, and almost managing to get Spyro to fly.

Our gaming together grew out of necessity - you might question putting such importance on what was actually quite a trivial matter, but the truth, as we all know, is that gaming is Serious Business. We were a man down in our regular Guitar Hero/Rock Band group - as I said, Serious Business! With me the only one of our number with enough rhythm to cope with the drums, and the other remaining member preferring the repetitive nature of the bass parts, it was up to the rookie to take on the role as our new lead guitarist.

And so began the slow transformation into a budding gamer; despite a brief dalliance with a certain revenue-generating, agriculture-themed time-sink, the major breakthrough into potential addiction came at New Year when we were introduced to the aforementioned Dungeon Defenders by the aforementioned bass playing friend. Since that fateful evening, barely a waking moment has passed in the house without Xbox controller in hand - the nagging has now changed from "Why would you rather play games than spend time with me?" to "Why don't you want to spend time playing games with me?"

Despite these breakthroughs, there are still many obstacles to overcome before I have a bona fide gaming expert on my hands; I shall aim to address some of these over the coming installments, so stay tuned.