Why do GF's/Fiance's/Wives hate Video Games?

[TheGuard13]

I think the stereotype for gamers definitely involves playing obsessively, and lacking balance in life.

 

The question is, what is “playing obsessively?” I just gotan Xbox 360 after not having a game system since the mid nineties, and I canplay for four hours a day and think nothing of it.

 

I also only play once every two or three days, and when mygirlfriend comes in the room, I put down the controller and shut it off.

 

Most women probably just want your hobby not to take up allyour free time and attention.

 

I think it’d be the same if you were knitting for fun. Some people watch TV too much, play sports too much…video games are just a different pastime.

 

Part of me wonders if there was ever this stigma attached topeople who played board games.

[chucksagent]

Theguard13 - Good question! (about board-games) I've often wondered that as well.

 

It's strange because the TONE is different for both. "(smile) He LOVES board games." and "Oh yeah, great, him and his video games."

 

Because usually people who LIKE gaming like GAMES. Be it board games, trivia games, video games, PC games, etc. It's the interaction they like...the problem solving, strategy, competition, etc. Like for me, I LOVE football and baseball too.

 

I've played both in little league and in High School. If someone said, "Hey man, let's play football every Saturday in your back yard." I would be FIRST to sign up. But you CAN NOT get people together easily to play football or baseball without joining a league. And even THEN you get hardcore nuts who want to dominate/dedicate a ton of time, a rigid schedule of when the games are, and reliability issues getting everyone there when the games are.

 

With video games, it's simple POWER UP the system and go with it.

 

I think you're right though about the stigma COMING FROM the hardcore gamers....almost like because how they are can be so overbearing it's what people think about when they think gamers. I just wish it wasn't like that.

[miss_jaclynrae]

I think a big reason why women dislike video games is because it is in fact an addiction for many people.

 

 

I know people who have wasted money and time instead of living real life, and that is not an attractive trait that women want in a man.

It goes both ways definitely, I know men would feel the same about reality tv if all their woman did was watch it....

 

 

I just don't know many women who do that, but the amount of men that spend a majority of free time playing video games? Yeah.... I know TONS of those.

[Lauriebell82]

And don't come back with "Because it takes time away from them."

 

Well, it does. Sorry!

 

I thought that at first too, but then I realized, they have no problems with reading. And reading is the EXACT same thing as playing video games. You are away from them, can't interact with them, can take hours at a time.

 

Not the same thing. I love when my husband and I read together (seperate books but in bed), it's like a "bonding experience," because we are doing the same thing and are sharing a common interest.

 

When my husband is playing a video game, he is playing a video game. It has nothing to do with me, and he can get wrapped up in them for hours.

[Els]

I think you are missing the point of all of this...

 

A stereotype USUALLY comes from somewhere...men and women OFTEN live up to their stereotypes - not always, but often and/or sometimes.

 

Whereas THE ACT of gaming itself...why the negative connotations???

 

Because... gamers often and/or sometimes live up to their stereotypes?

[Rubix123]

Tbh, it depends what kind of person you are I guess, shallow I know, my boyfriend hates me playing video games and prefers that I don't probably because of his old fashioned up bringing and tbh I do find it a bit annoying that he finds 'there's no need for fantasy video games' but in all fairness I think he is right in a way, god I have wasted many a time and hours days and nights. I don't know though, I always thought a video game here and there was good for the brain but sometimes like I've heard people who get addicted to them, my ex who played for hours and always had his friends round and then actually did stop talking due to it. So there is good and bad to it. But I think in moderation it's fine people are bound to get addicted to video games easily though I'd know myself, I'm not slandering them cause I do like to play one now and again but it draws you in.... It's the same with any game really. You get addicted lol. That's the way it is.,, why do you think they constantly bring out next games? To steal your money and get you hooked lol.

[chucksagent]

Rubix123 - Maybe the best answer of the post...Because it was 100% and 0% Judgmental...

 

As much as it stinks, like you said, your boyfriend just HAS that sterotype...no reason for it OTHER than that's what society, his parents, his teachers, some friends no doubt have said...SO HE accepts it...

 

It's no different than 50 years ago when the MAJORITY of men didn't think women should vote....

 

Or when the MAJORITY of white men didn't think black people should have rights....

 

Or when the MAJORITY of people thought the earth was flat...

 

Or when the MAJORITY of people thought the earth was the center of the universe....

 

Even thought EVERY EXAMPLE I just listed is horribly, horribly, wrong...the MASSES are A$$es and just listen to what they are taught/told and don't question things.

 

Like you said, and I agree, I think occasional gaming is actually beneficial. And my pedigree speaks for itself. I passed the bar exam first try and was an A and B student in law school. I've played sports and club sports at EVERY level of schooling and am very well rounded. But I don't hold any one activity over another. They are all just to blow off steam/make the days a little more enjoyable.

 

But as a refined man who is an academic, who has 7 years of schooling...Who passed a test MOST fail (JFK Jr. included)...I clearly am at a higher level of thinking. I would have been one of the people FIGHTING for womens rights, FIGHTING for equality among blacks and whites, FIGHTING to prove the earth wasn't flat or center of the earth. And back then, just like today with video games, people would look at me like I'm crazy simply because they don't have the intellectual capacity to realize it's as simple as "different strokes for different folks."

 

But, to the contrary, people will try to argue that going to the bar or texting is more beneficial and cooler...Lol...Why? Because society says so and THAT is good enough!!! hahaha Simple, simple minds.

[TheBigQuestion]

Off-topic, but I need to point out that most people absolutely do NOT fail the bar exam, let alone repeatedly like JFK Jr. did. Even the state with the most difficult bar exam, California, usually has a pass rate between 50% and 60%, and the reason that state's passage rate is so low is because California is home to a large amount of unaccredited law schools. Considering the sheer number of mouth-breathers I've known who have passed the bar exam (because they're in practice now), I wouldn't use the fact that you passed as a badge of honor. The prestige and difficulty of the legal profession is inflated by the false public perception that most lawyers are rich. Your law degree alone would not have made you a crusader for justice in this time or any other. Yes, you have a point about society being unduly judgmental about gamers and women being even more judgmental. But seriously broseph, this has nothing to do with your, ahem, "academic" background.

[chucksagent]

Thebigquestion - Legal training teaches you how to apply law to given facts....it teachers you how to reason and apply logic to any given situation....These skills are crucial in avoiding things like stereotypes and prejudices...It's the kind of thinking that doesn't allow you to just ACCEPT what any idiot in the street tells you is fact and pass it along and accept it as your own...MANY of the leaders of both women's rights and abolitionists were lawyers...Abraham Lincoln, maybe you've heard of him. RFK is another, I'm sure you're aware of his contributions. Law school would GREATLY aid people in helping to avoid the GANG mentality thinking.

 

Why do you think the average citizen is such an idiot? Because public schools BREED "workers." Just smart enough to do the crap job for crap wages and just dumb enough to not ask questions or care about how bad they are getting screwed. Take it from me, as I didn't learn much in Highschool. I learned more in ONE YEAR of law school about critical thinking than ALL of K-12th. K-12th all they care about is memorization....no problem solving, no critical thinking, no reasoning, no logic puzzles.

[chucksagent]

Notables who failed the bar exam:

1. MICHELLE OBAMA- A graduate of Harvard Law School, Ms. Obama failed her first try at the Illinois Bar Exam, said to be one of the easier bar exam States;

 

2. BENJAMIN CARDOZO- Renowned Justice of the United States Supreme Court, former Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, who entered Columbia Law School at the age of fifteen, failed at his first attempt at the New York Bar Exam;

 

3. HILARY CLINTON- Current Secretary of State, former Senator for New York State, former candidate for President of the United States, First Lady during Bill Clinton’s presidency, attended Yale Law School, wrote her bar exam in Washington DC and failed. She later wrote and passed the Arkansas Bar Exam, practicing patent law and intellectual property law. Her pro bono interests were in the area of child and family advocacy;

 

4. THE MAYORS- RICHARD DALEY of Chicago, ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA of Los Angeles and ED KOCH of New York;

 

5. THE GOVERNORS- JERRY BROWN of California, PETE WILSON of California, and DAVID PATERSON of New York;

 

6. PAT ROBERTSON, founder and host of the 700 Club and leader of the Christian Coalition, graduated from Yale Law School but failed the bar exam. He then abandoned law and obtained a Doctor of Divinity degree. Leader of the christian right, he is a successful businessman and entrepreneur, who founded Regent University which includes a Judeo-Christian law school.

 

7. KATHLEEN SULLIVAN, former Dean of Stanford Law School, Marshall scholar at Oxford, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1981, constitutional and appellate law expert, often mentioned as a candidate for the United States Supreme Court, failed the California Bar Exam, but rewrote it in 2006 and passed. Many years earlier she had been admitted to both the Massachussats and the New York bar.

 

8. JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. might ring a bell as a fairly important public figure. He failed the New York bar exam twice before he got it right. After that he went on to serve as a New York District Attorney for four years before starting his own magazine.

 

10. KEVIN D. CALLAHAN story will definitely give you hope that there is life after failing the bar. He took the Massachusetts bar exam and failed it 10 times before he finally passed. He then took a job as an assistant District Attorney and eventually started a successful private practice. He even ran for District Attorney in Cape Cod in 1998.

[chucksagent]

And I don't think you FULLY appreciate the scope of what it takes to obtain a Juris Doctorate degree....Let's look at the timeline...

 

1) Get good grades in High School...good enough to go to a college that will look good on your Law School Admissions Application

 

2) Do well in College...Well enough to even be CONSIDERED for law school....

 

3) Take the LSAT...a warped version of the SAT's which is WAY harder and all logic games and puzzles...

 

4) HOPE to get high enough on the LSAT so that combined with your GPA you can even get INTO law school...I know SEVERAL people who bombed their LSAT multiple times so couldn't even get considered for law school.

 

5) Get into law school and NOT be one of the many who fail out. Make it through the first GRUELING year...and then make it through the easier, but drowned in reading, 2nd year....coast (admittedly) through the 3rd but with more busy work because of trial skills and moot court stuff if you are a Litigation Focus

 

6) Study for the Bar exam - some people take long/expensive courses because the test is so feared.

 

7) Pass the Bar Exam - which some consider to be one of the hardest professional entrance exams there is.

 

8) Hundreds of people fail EACH STATES bar exam every time it's given...you need to make sure you aren't one of them.

 

So forgive me, if that journey seems to give more credence to my academic achievements than the college drop out who sits on a bar stool and thinks he is smarter than everyone else around him.

[chucksagent]

And I agree a LOT of lawyers suck and are BAD people (as with any profession)....And I LITERALLY meant myself..I meant I PERSONALLY would have been a fighter for justice in the past....close mindedness and injustice is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. That's why the video game stereotype annoys me so much.

[chucksagent]

The Big Question - You were right, however, about %ages. I just looked it up...In my state it was 60/40 pass/fail. So MOST people passed...But 40% failure is still VERY high for a test you just spent 3 years preparing for. Lol.

[TheBigQuestion]

And I don't think you FULLY appreciate the scope of what it takes to obtain a Juris Doctorate degree....Let's look at the timeline...

 

1) Get good grades in High School...good enough to go to a college that will look good on your Law School Admissions Application

 

2) Do well in College...Well enough to even be CONSIDERED for law school....

 

3) Take the LSAT...a warped version of the SAT's which is WAY harder and all logic games and puzzles...

 

4) HOPE to get high enough on the LSAT so that combined with your GPA you can even get INTO law school...I know SEVERAL people who bombed their LSAT multiple times so couldn't even get considered for law school.

 

5) Get into law school and NOT be one of the many who fail out. Make it through the first GRUELING year...and then make it through the easier, but drowned in reading, 2nd year....coast (admittedly) through the 3rd but with more busy work because of trial skills and moot court stuff if you are a Litigation Focus

 

6) Study for the Bar exam - some people take long/expensive courses because the test is so feared.

 

7) Pass the Bar Exam - which some consider to be one of the hardest professional entrance exams there is.

 

8) Hundreds of people fail EACH STATES bar exam every time it's given...you need to make sure you aren't one of them.

 

So forgive me, if that journey seems to give more credence to my academic achievements than the college drop out who sits on a bar stool and thinks he is smarter than everyone else around him.

 

Sure I appreciate what it takes. What do you think I've been doing for the past three years? Yes, going through law school might make you a bit more enlightened than your average community college dropout, but you're still overstating the preeminence of your (our) profession. This is alright if you're out trying to get dates or new clients, but you can't BS someone who is currently in law school and who understands that most lawyers work in tiny firms that handle low level criminal defense, DUI, drunk-driving, and will-drafting work that you can train a monkey to do. Your education is not bolstering your arguments in this thread. All you're doing is making yourself sound arrogant.

 

1. People from poor undergraduate institutions get into elite law schools all the time. It's almost entirely a function of GPA, LSAT score, letters of recommendation and extracurriculars.

 

2./3./4. Oh please. Grades aren't important if your LSAT score is high. Political science majors with 3.0 GPAs get into good law schools all the time provided they score at least around the 70th percentile of the LSAT.

 

5. Yes, the first year is a nightmare, but the vast majority of law schools (i.e. not the crappy, low-ranked, for-profit institutions that purposely fail 25% of their students) have VERY low attrition rates. In fact, the elite law schools have virtually no dropouts at all. It's well known that only bad law schools grade in a manner that makes large portions of their students fail. At my school, only about 5 people dropped out after first year. Out of a class of 300. A few more transferred. At any school of even marginal reputation, you'll find the same. Actually failing or dropping out is a rarity, and it's been that way forever.

 

6. Yeah, people pay money to pass a standardized test. That means nothing.

 

7. The bar exam is a cakewalk compared to the CPA, CFA exams, actuarial exams, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

 

8. The vast majority of jurisdictions have first-time pass rates of 65%-80%, far higher than all of the above-referenced exams.

[chucksagent]

Well I don't want to get into a pi$$ing match about irrelevant things...but the bottom line is, I never said it made me SMARTER or my career is BETTER than anyone else's...I said I feel my career highlights the ability to look at a situation and DECIDE FOR YOURSELF how you should view it.

 

You have to admit, don't you notice in every day life people just ACCEPT stereotypes about things like gaming and lend ZERO of their own personal rational thought to it?

 

I can't recall what CEO it was, but he is a SUPER rich and SUPER successful one...and he spoke on this saying that if you REALLY want to get technical, the way games are today, you can almost consider someone who is very good at certain games as someone who would be a very good fit in a lot of leadership roles in business.

 

The guy who said it wasn't a gamer...but like us, he is intelligent enough to look at a situation with no pre-determined/pre-existing bias, and make a decision/judgment about how he wishes to view it. When I said "higher level of thinking" I didn't mean SMARTER but instead, more open-minded. A lot of people wilfully (or just as often naturally) choose to ignore the facts and stick to whatever pre-conceived notion they have been told. I've been taught/trained to NOT do that.

[Shardish]

Bioshock Infinite will see my stuck on my PS3 on my days off from work.

[Els]

You do realize that yet another stereotype of gamers that you are absolutely propagating is the need for pointless e-peen contests, right, OP?

[chucksagent]

Elswyth - Shows how hardcore of a gamer I am, I had to use Urban Dictionary to find out what that even means...Lol.

 

And YES, some stereotypes apply SOME of the time...Lawyers and gamers occasionally have big ego's and like to debate...go figure.

 

BUT, there is also a stereotype that women like to shop...and that women like to gossip...and that women like to watch reality TV shows...

 

You HAVE to believe many of those aren't CRAZY stereotypes because men aren't buying overpriced purses....men aren't watching Jersey Housewives, The Bachelor and Keeping up with the Kardasians....And men SURE as heck aren't buying STAR magazine or US weekly.

 

So yes, we all have our stereotypes, and SOMETIMES they apply. BUT, the point of this ENTIRE frigging post, is that you SHOULDN'T BE JUDGED because of what your interests are (Whether you fit into a Stereotype or not)...

 

The stereotype issue is ancillary...The primary issue is of ALL the moot, pointless, idiotic, mindless, time passing activities that exist (they have all been listed throughout this thread), why is something like getting drunk at a bar or watching some idiot "fall in love" with 20 women on television acceptable slash awesome, but enjoying a video game "dorky?"

 

But I think RUBIX123 cracked it...I think the honest to god answer is that the AVERAGE person hears something and repeats it...I don't think most people critically think about EVERY issue in the world...This has actually presented problems for me with family and my lovers over the years...

 

Because I tend to analyze everything...question everything...sometimes silently in my head, and sometimes out loud. But the MAJORITY of people I meet in the world are just sheep or cattle being herded from one farm to the next. Don't ask any question and just listen to the Shepard and behave... (Shepherd being government--->schools--->boss--->parents)

 

My honest opinion is that FOR ME, I would get WAYYYYYY more out of a video game than Facebook, Gossip Mags, Reality TV, and going to the bar. BUT, I never push that on ANYONE else...to each their own...we each have our own lives and if we were all identical and shared identical interests it'd be a pretty boring world.

 

So I don't understand how I can be called arrogant, yet at the same time NOT be so arrogant to presume my personal activities are any better or any worse than anyone else's. BUT so many "not arrogant" people can pass judgment on me and other people who enjoy games.

[TheBigQuestion]

You do realize that yet another stereotype of gamers that you are absolutely propagating is the need for pointless e-peen contests, right, OP?

 

Now now. I started that one.

[chucksagent]

Now now. I started that one.

 

TheBigQuestion - You are a gentleman...I wasn't about to throw you under the bus! Thanks for doing it yourself....Lol. You did indeed start it...I only kept it going with like 7 more posts hahahaha The best is how my final post says "I don't want to get in a peeing match" after I just respond like 7 times...lol What an @$$ I am...haha

 

No, to be fair, you were right to call me out. I misspoke about the statistics, and you are right, academic background alone isn't enough to make or brake a persons credibility. I just genuinely feel for me personally, that my legal training has made me a better (the best of all of my friends and family) candidate to think outside of the box in everyday life.

 

Since graduating, I've noticed on COUNTLESS occasions how this happens across the board...not just with video games. Prime example, texting when at dinner or in the company of other people. It's like picking your nose...."Nooooobody does it, everyone hates it, yet everyone knows TONS of people who have had it done to them in their company." LMFAO.

 

Someone said on here that it's socially considered the WRONG thing, but I'm not sure it is....Certainly common sense wise it's wrong because it's rude. If you came over my house and I sat and played my 1 player video game ignoring you, that TOO would be rude. But I have seen SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many people do it....certainly I've seen more do it than not do it...So yes, common sense wise, it's wrong...but socially, it seems more acceptable than not acceptable.