So I Married a Non-gamer (Ep. 1)

In this new series, I will catalog the breadth and depth of my spouse’s hatred for all things joy-stick controlled, while trying to outline the ups and downs of life with a non-gamer as seen through the eyes of a gamer. I hope it will prove entertaining and not too pathetic.

I got the idea for this from Dan Savage, an extremely funny sex advice columnist/podcaster. A few weeks ago a woman called in on his podcast to complain that she was a “WoW Widow.” I forget the details, but the gist was that she was fed up with planning her life around his fucking raids. Although I’ve never tried WoW, and her complaints were reasonable, I felt rather uncomfortable. It reminded me that the mass-media is full of non-gamers complaining about their game-loving partners/friends/kids/students, while there is little regarding gamers living in a gamer-hostile environments.

The Origin Story: I married Bob (clearly not her real name) in 1999 to fulfill a contractual obligation which I undertook upon inadvertently inseminating her. This may have in fact been advertent on her part. She had insisted that we stop using condoms some months before and I was under the mistaken impression that she was taking other precautions. The old keep-a-gaijin trick. Nevertheless, the result of our infrequent couplings was our crazy awesome daughter, JapanGameLoser Jr. (JGL Jr. hereafter). Unlike her mother, JGL Jr. fucking loves video games. This shared interest with my daughter is one of the things that keeps me sane in the scorched wasteland of my marriage.

Over the years, I have never been able to completely figure Bob out. I have plenty of theories, ranging from bi-polar disorder to a secret double-life as a highly-paid hitwoman, but none of them can account for all of her behavior. The only solid, consistent fact I have learned about her is that video games really piss her off. Welcome to my personal Hell.