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Article Synopsis
Baranor delves into a discussion about gaming, your significant other, and how to improve the harmoney between real life and internet life. | |
That other half...
"So what DID you do all day then?"
"Why are you always staring at that screen?"
"Can't you think of anything else to do? "
I've heard them all, and a lot of variants of the above too. Yes, I admit it, I'm a gaming addict. I like PC-games, boardgames, pen-and-paper roleplaying games and tabletop wargames. I like them, and I play them. I think about them, day and night. I fall asleep brimming with ideas, and I wake up again, brimming with ideas (albeit different ones). My wife is married to a gamer, and she knows it. It's hard ot miss between the pile of rulebooks and the miniatures, the pc games collection ( I have over a hundred), and the Diablo II//Starcraft T-shirts. Luckily she is of the patient sort, and I'm a sensible fellow.... well, the latter is not entirely correct, but she did wack some sense into me over the years. Not every woman is so lucky, and some of them have totally addicted husbands. Every time they turn around, their husband is gaming. In between the dishes and the laundry, ten minutes of gaming. When their wife watches a show they don't like, gaming. Mornings before going to work. Evenings, when the wife is asleep. If their better half is off to somewhere, gaming.
Sometimes it gets worse though. Some unlucky individuals are married to husbands that actually work at game-producing companies. Not only do those guys work with games, they talk about games, game in their overtime and when its crunchtime, they even sleep at work. And this does not by far stop at the pc-games industry. Lots of tabletop wargames have their own clubs. The most well-known one, Warhammer (be it fantasy battle or the sf-counterpart 40.000), has its own stores, with clubs. Most of these clubs have websites. The personell working at the stores are usually rabid, froth-at-the-mouth fans of the genre (try walking into a Games Workshop and debate with the staff about wargames other than WH, and you'll see what I mean), and several variant games have arisen so that they could game in their lunchbreaks and in a quick hour after work. But there's one special club, that doesnt really have a headquarters, a store or a website. Most likely you've never heard of them. But if you're not a gamer reading this, but his wife or girlfriend, you'll instantly feel empathy with that group. Their husbands work at the Games Workshop headquarters, and spend most of their times on Warhammer. The group named itself the Warhammer Widows.
A somewhat shocking name, but look at it from their perspective. Their husbands work at a gaming company, they play the game, their social life revolves around that game, and the company has an inhouse bar named after one of the characters present in that game, so when the guys go out, they go there. Overtime is either working on the game or gaming itself, lunchtime is gaming, and when they hobby at home, most likely they are painting miniatures for that game (as Warhammer is a miniature game). In effect, the husbands spend somewhat of around 70-90 hours a week on the game. Seeing that a week has 106 waking hours (counting an 8 hour night sleep), and that some time needs to be spend eating and attending to personal hygene the wives get to see their husbands oohh what, 5-20 hours a week? That's not a lot, especially if you also have kids to attend to. So, their response was to name themselves Warhammer widows.... and we all know that some of you have girlfriends and/or wives that can call themselves Widows too... because if there is one thing that attracts us, its gaming!
Next time when you think about a quiet evening of gaming, spend the time on the woman instead. They're awfully nice once you get to know them ;o)
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