Alternating waves of excitement and trepidation washed over me as I took a seat in the styling chair at the cosmetology school student salon. This is the level of mundane I have acheived at the ripe, old age of 31; the intense thrill of getting a haircut by someone who possibly should not ever be allowed to wield a pair of shears. Before long my Stylist of the Day was happily snipping away at the hair I had so recklessly been growing for the past six months and, as is wont to happen, small talk ensued.
She asked if there was any special reason why I chose to change my radically style-free hair. I explained that there was a gamer convention coming up and, seeing as this is pretty much the only week of the year a nerd girl like me can actually get laid, I figured I would try to at least look as though I give half a shit. After she stopped giggling she uttered the inevitable words I have come to dread: "Oh, my boyfriend is a gamer". She then asked what games I play and I tried to express my love affair with Bastion as succinctly as possible, told her about the planned Fallout: New Vegas road trip my best friend and I are taking soon and explained why the Kingdom of Loathing comic book will be "the best thing ever".
She smiled and nodded and flung wet scraps of red hair to the floor. "That sounds neat. I don't play but my boyfriend is really into games. He plays this one -- what's it called?" My heart sank. "Call of Duty," I asked. Her face lit up with recognition, and with those three words my perception of a man I've never met changed from cool guy who is into cool things to just some dude who is dating a bubbly, blonde cosmetology student and probably bathes in Axe body spray. Backwards baseball cap. Honda Civic with one fake tailpipe and another three sizes too big. Sitting in front of a flat screen that costs more than his entire college education with his two roommates, surrounded by several dozen crushed PBR cans ... I could go on, but I don't think either of us want that.
Now, I am not going to argue merits of what is probably the highest grossing video game franchise in the history of modern warfare. Yes, it's popular, I get it. And if it were entirely shit no amount of marketing in the world could save it. In fact, I'm not going to go into the issues that I have with Call of Duty and similar titles because, honestly, that's not what this rant is about. What it really boils down to is this: Being into one game - the same game that half of the population of the world is also into - does not qualify you as a gamer. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. I don't even call myself a gamer. Sure, I have a passable knowledge on what's going on in the industry, and can bitch and moan about non-intuitive console control functions or my FPS being capped with the best of them. But that's where it ends with me. I played a total of 2 hours of the Starcraft 2 beta before handing the controls over to my roommate (who actually is a gamer). I find WoW about as interesting as a stripper named Candi (in that it's nice to look at for a while, but eventually I want something more, and preferably without having to keep feeding it my credit card number). And while I've watched the aforementioned roommate play through pretty much every major release from the past year, I've personally touched only a handful.
So, yeah, I am *not* a gamer, although I hope to achieve that rank some day. But, neither is Mr. Herp Derp Look-At-My-Big-Gun.
Or, to put it another way, the fact that you play Guitar Hero does not make you a musician any more than GTA makes you a master carjacker. And spending 16 hours a day shooting at your fellow bro dudes absolutely does not qualify you as a gamer.
End rant.
Why I Hate Your Boyfriend
Why?
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