By the end of this year, I will be 44 years old. I consider myself a successful person, happily married and in a good place in life.
I am also a massive gaming nerd, and proud of it too.
Despite hearing it from basically everywhere, I never “grew out” or “moved on” from video games. They’ve been a big part of my life ever since my father brought me my first computer, an Atari 800XL, when I was in primary school. Since I remember, books and games were my favorite ways of spending my free time, and not much has changed since. I’m avoiding social media if I can, a Netflix series must really be an exceptional one in my standards for me to sit through an episode. Games give me a way of experiencing a story in a more active fashion: books are stories that need imagination for the reader to visualise, while games are about many things: eye-hand coordination, quick decision making and at the same time, patience to persevere more difficult parts.
I cringe every time I hear that games as a hobby is not manly enough or other absurd claims like that. I’m blessed by being married to a woman who is at times as much of a nerd as me. She probably stayed up all night playing Sims 4 (or, more recently, Power Wash Simulator) more often than I did playing World of Warcraft back in college years. And then there’s some couch co-op games we can play together, if we feel like it.
Every one of us has a limited time on Earth. I really see no reason for not doing the things I’ve loved since I was a child, just because that’s what society expects or whatever. And it’s definitely not as braindead as turning into a couch potato binging another season of whatever middling series trending on Netflix this week. Don’t get me wrong, I still do that. It’s just on rare occasions, rather than every evening. Preferrably after a solid workout, so my body doesn’t scream at me for being lazy.
Anyway, that’s just a thing I was thinking about the last couple days: that weird gaming stigma, based on nothing except someone out there not understanding it.
Remember, enjoy your free time the way you like, as long as it’s not detrimental to you or your closest ones.