For years suburbs and city’s alike have had women with a mutual problem, their other halves being addicted to hobbies or going to the pub. Some of these women ended their relationships on the grounds that the men took too much of an interest in their hobbies, and so phrases such as the ‘pub widow’ were born.
But now with games like World of Warcraft notching up around ten million regular players (that would be around 0.1% of Earth’s population by the way) and the newly released Modern Warfare 2 selling seven million copies across platforms in its’ first day alone, it seems some women, perhaps quite reasonably, are somewhat panicked by this news.
This may all seem a little bit sexist towards female gamers or people who don’t mind what their partners do as long as they are happy, in truth it kind of is. This blog post is largely in reply to an article in The Telegraph.
So admittedly (by coincidence) my relationship with my girlfriend ended about a fortnight before Modern Warfare 2 came out and I have got to say, as much as I miss her it’s kind of cool being able to sink in a couple of hours a night with friends without feeling, perhaps needlessly, guilty. There is also no doubt that if I was with someone I would be torn as to how to spend my time, I suppose because I know I wouldn’t be playing games as much as I would like.
However articles like this really drive home what a ridiculous occurrence ‘gaming widows’ can often be, at no point in the article are female gamers mentioned; in fact the most enjoyable part for me was looking at the comments below the article. I urge you to read every comment with a female name attached; every single lady on there seems to make the whole concept of gaming widows redundant, boasting such things as making their ‘fella’ go to the midnight opening of Modern Warfare 2 with them, before staying up to the wee hours playing it.
Mainly however it highlights the neglect anyone feels because of games. It should not be blamed so harshly on their partners’ (whether male or female) want to play a game, the only problem really seeming apparent is the problem of incompatibility. I’m sure none of the above commenting females are going to be in any break ups because of their man’s want to play a game; I’m sure a girl who’s husband likes movies as much as her will not be in any quarrels about time spent at the cinema.
I can totally understand gaming to the point of addiction can break friendships and relationships alike, but if you were to have the same interests as someone or the same mutual understanding of your different hobbies then I’m sure the ‘Gaming Widow’ would remain a little spoken, little heard of, legend.
Daniel Rowbotham