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I know quite a few guys who have had wives or GFs give them video game ultimatums. I always found it odd that the women were never supposed to stop watching their horrible, brain-dead TV shows though. As for me and my wife, she makes fun of me when I am slaying orcs or terrorists and I make fun of her whenever she is watching something on the CW. It works out well.
Six different guys suggests the problem is the OP and not the guys. Most likely the are gaming a reasonable amount but she is high-maintenance or obsessed with attention. Maybe a clinger. Whatever the case, after 6 incidents of the same issue, the problem is almost certainly with her (at least in part).
We're not talking about merely paying attention to immediate tasks, we're talking about obsessions.
I think that what I said is still relevant.
Gaming is designed to be addictive primarily through the use of goals and level-ups. Men are typically more goal-oriented and more competitive than women... and once that competitive instinct has been triggered, there is a noticeable change in behavior.
I don't agree with the OP's condescending attitude, but I think it's quite possible that gaming is male-dominated for reasons other than socialization.
I don't know what the female equivalent of gaming would be... possibly shopping.
And how many women ignore their family, children and relationships for the above?
At least women don't feel the need to escape into a fantasy world. Whereas men need their adolescent male power fantasy.
Sure, men like to play video games. But I see women all the time on facebook wishing they were like their friends or whomever. Just as much "fantasy" there, living through other people on social media.
Now I know people will say "Not all men are like that" but based on personal experience and what I've seen it's pretty much always men that get crazy-obsessed with things to the point they ignore their marriage, family, kids, hygiene etc.
I think it is in our wiring. I think the genders have basic wiring tendencies which, when balanced against reason, represent ancient survival mechanisms that still have value today. When not balanced against reason, they represent idiocy. For example, it's idiotic for a man to ignore his children and wife over a game, day in and day out. Just as it is idiotic for a woman to be so obsessed with getting in a snippy comment to that mean receptionist at her job that she forgets that her reason for being paid is to do a job, not win a little war of snippy comments.
Watch Hell's Kitchen sometime. When the men fail, even though they can cook, it's because one of them goes so lone wolf, falls so far out of the group communication, that he brings the kitchen to a screeching halt. When the women fail, even though they can cook, it is nearly always for social or emotional reasons involving words said to them by the other women.
My wife has been a labor leader for twenty years. She has observed many bargaining units, some of balanced gender, some of very segregated gender. Just two nights ago, after a whole plan had been agreed upon, one of the male officers of a chapter went completely rogue, sending out something on his own hook before it was reviewed. My wife learned about this about 9 PM in our living room. She used bad words, but this was fairly typical of male straight-line wiring going ahead without following a consensus. (He's an idiot anyway.) I very well remember all the bus drivers who wanted to file grievances against each other..."because she doesn't say hello to me." Seriously. The trends are not universal, but they are definitely trends.
I believe they are rooted in atavistic survival instincts. Primitive man needed to be able to lay in wait for hours, focused upon his quarry, ignoring hardship and pain, and to pursue the goal regardless of hindrances. Primitive woman's need was an awareness of many inputs, multi-tasking, rapid and sudden switching of focus, all while keeping the peace at home even though her mother-in-law was being a snippy old bat and Junior just knocked over the broth again while pulling Miss Junior's hair. Didn't mean they couldn't do each other's jobs at need, just that it did not come naturally or easily in most cases. I'm sure now and then there was a primitive man who was a fantastic multi-tasker and peacekeeper, and that there was a primitive woman who was death incarnate with a spear.
If you want a given man to change, you may have an uphill climb, but it can happen in some cases. I know the feeling. In the end, I will never get my wife to develop a basic understanding of simple physics, chemistry, or biology. For the rest of my life, I will have to handle those issues where they are problematic, and shut my mouth where they are not. However, she's at least gotten a lot better about closing bottles, sealing lids, and clipping bags, so that not everything we have is spoiled or stale. I claim victory and refrain from ragging on her, quietly going behind her and checking and re-sealing and closing the ones where she forgot. It is also true that at times I still get so focused on my show, or my book, or my game, that I drop out of communication. I'm better at it, thanks to her guidance, and am less annoying to her. However, now and then she will have to butt in and say: "Do you realize it's 5:30 and we are supposed to leave at 6? Have you even jumped in the shower?" If I just started something that I can't save, well, that was my bad, and I have to accept that.
Yes, this is not by any means a new or newly discovered phenomenon. It's been noted for decades--long before video games were invented--that adolescent males can become focused to the exclusion of nearly everything else on specific avocations.
If there is a difference today, it's that such exclusionary focus so often now extends far beyond adolescence rather than being subsumed by the prosaic cares of normal adult occupations.
Agree and apparently the OP and others did not have this knowledge or they wouldn't have asked the question.
I know quite a few guys who have had wives or GFs give them video game ultimatums. I always found it odd that the women were never supposed to stop watching their horrible, brain-dead TV shows though. As for me and my wife, she makes fun of me when I am slaying orcs or terrorists and I make fun of her whenever she is watching something on the CW. It works out well.
Six different guys suggests the problem is the OP and not the guys. Most likely the are gaming a reasonable amount but she is high-maintenance or obsessed with attention. Maybe a clinger. Whatever the case, after 6 incidents of the same issue, the problem is almost certainly with her (at least in part).
You're absolutely right. I've seen men such as the OP has described. Generally, they're married to loud-mouthed, domineering women, who see men as stupid dog creatures in need of 'direction' by women. The children are loud and undisciplined, and their homes are loud hellholes, full of blaring devices (TVs, music, toys...) and cooking smoke. Naturally, men will choose to TUNE-OUT all of that, and focus on ANYTHING other than the wretched reality surrounding them.
I have to wonder if such men didn't have mothers like their wives. So, they've got a lot of practice at this sort of thing. Maybe they know no way of being, other than being stunted beings.
Men DO have the ability to focus, for long periods of time, upon complex tasks. This is why they are so much more apt to achieve MASTERY of disciplines which most women abhor. This ability can get subverted into nonproductive areas, such as sports, video games, hunting, golfing (shudder...), or literary pursuits, collecting...
I don't know whether I just got lucky, or if I maybe had a hand in how my husband turned out. We met when we were 17 - before his final growth spurt. So, he was, in a way, still just 'forming'. He knocked me up on our first date, and we both were stunned, to find ourselves in love, in a relationship, with a family, and with actual futures (none of which either of us had considered possible).
As the first young wife in our little 'pod' of friends (all ambitious misfits, at a middle-of-nowhere university for poor kids), I was the beneficiary of much theorizing. We girls (and our Gay friend-boys, who, admittedly, supplied most of the conceptual leaps) decided that our homes should be oases of quiet, beauty, and order. It's amazing what results can be achieved, when actual goals are established. Our homes DID evolve along the lines we'd envisioned, and they, consequently, became places which the husbands did not dread. Bitsi, Babette, and Izzy actually CHOSE quiet, introverted, studious, big, hyper-intelligent fellas with serious stud potential (better genetics = better offspring), while I, the ugly duckling of the flock, simply got lucky. Maybe, they followed my lead, and picked boys likely to blossom in the ways that mine did.
The fact that our homes (by design, and after considerable continued effort) contained nothing for a man to dread - no constant screaming of offspring, no bad acoustics, no clouds of cooking smoke, and no loud priss-pot harpies incessantly running their stupid mouths - meant that our homes were neither places to be avoided, nor environments to 'screen-out'. It was easy for our husbands to get their rest, and to focus on productive pursuits and personal growth. And that is precisely what they have done.
Possibly, some men turn their powers of concentration toward sports, hunting, and "games", because they are too frazzled and weary(due to chaotic home lives), to direct their large brains toward getting doctorates, becoming electrical engineers, building apartment complexes, founding their own engineering firms, founding hedge funds, founding chemical corporations, participating in investment clubs, serious bodybuilding, and all the other things that men in MY world do, INSTEAD OF sitting in front of those gadget thingies which allow some men to play electronic games. I suppose it's a matter of expanding, rather than constricting.
My payoff for staying out of my husband's face, making sure NOTHING disturbs his sleep, keeping the children civil, isolating our kitchens' air supplies, keeping our homes magazine-shoot-ready, and swathing our environment in sound-deadening materials? He's 51, has broccoli for breakfast, spends two hours a day at the gym, still ripples with muscle, and still gives me the big one, twice a day.
His life is simple. He puts on a suit, and stays in a suit, except when he's at the gym, or has gone upstairs for the night. He has his active business interests, and I have mine. But, since he is in 'chemicals', his helming of his own concerns requires considerable concentration. He has to understand complex interactions and lines of supply, while I, in my concerns, can afford to flit from one task to another - basically delegating everything to others, and endlessly spot-checking their work.
As time has passed, I, and our children, have completely assumed the burden of investing the proceeds from his active business concerns and mine. Currently, I deal with and plan our commercial properties, while our youngest (the MBA), manages securities. My husband has no hobbies. He works. He lifts weights. He does his cardio. He sits on the boards of others' corporations. He (the Chemical Engineer) and our daughter (the Surgeon) disinfect and prepare the ingredients of our salads (a big job, actually). He manages (and pees on) our various compost piles (another big job, actually, in a Vegetarian family).
He shops for clothes. He goes up to the Tie Room, and hauls loads of incoming ties to his Packing Room, where his mannequins stand. He putzes around with ties and shirts and suits and shoes, which actually is an important thing. But mostly, his head is full of the minutiae and the overview of the design and supply and cost and sale of chemicals. While he's planning outfits, he's pondering the efficacy of processes. Our Laundress has learned to stay out of his hair, while he's up there. I had to explain, after he nearly snapped her head off, that his thoughts are like puffs of smoke, which, if we're lucky, will coalesce into patented processes. And maybe that encapsulates the issue: that certain men's ability to concentrate and focus upon enormously complex issues/fields of endeavor, is a beautiful thing, and the thing upon which our miraculous way of life, ultimately, depends. (In 'our', I include all of us who enjoy the fruits of Western Civilization)
I think that a great many women create environments which cause men to constrict - to withdraw into little balls of frustration - unable to express themselves, or to effect positive change.
Now I know people will say "Not all men are like that" but based on personal experience and what I've seen it's pretty much always men that get crazy-obsessed with things to the point they ignore their marriage, family, kids, hygiene etc.
ALL men. I have also had ex bfs that would come home and spend HOURS completely enthralled with games and that's all they'd do. Of course it's not just video games it can be sports or other activities. I just don't understand it, for the good majority, women seem to have a much easier time not getting crazy obsessed with things they ignore others or especially their children.
I've seen numerous women get the same when they have a NetFlix or Hulu binge. Just saying.
As someone pointed out, women do become obsessed with things, and so spend a lot of time shopping, surveys have found that women prefer shopping to sex, so don't tell me that women ignore their family's for their favorite hobby. We also know that women typically spend a lot of time watching TV. Men watch sports, but women watch all the reality shows.
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