I married a man who once made an entire home star runner video series using toys and a very good imitation accent for all the characters. A man who has insanely high levels on his diablo and Starcraft game. A man who has more games on his phone than I even knew existed. A man who sometimes spends his lunch break at a local arcade(eating a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and always stares longingly at the ones in the mall.
This has always perplexed and amused me over the years. I’m not a gamer. Sure, Mario kart is my jam but I’ve never been a consistent player of a game. I’ll download one on my phone, likely one Alex has talked me into playing, play with him for a week or two and then never open that app again. It’s a vicious circle.
Men always get a bad rap. It’s childish to play games. It means they’re not ready to grow up or be a man. They’re too stuck in a fantasy world to enjoy what’s really going on around them. This made me nervous when Alex and I first got together. Over the years everyone would say he would grow out of it and it couldn’t last. He would get a fancy job and just be so busy he couldn’t even think of games. No dice. It never dulled or faded. I started getting worried, is this okay? Are we going to be sixty and still trying to see how far we can go on a zombies map?
But then something shifted. I started to see a side of it that wasn’t clear to me all this time. You know that look in a child’s face when you give them something they’ve always wanted and they just light up? Somewhere we lose that over the years and I don’t know why because it seems so detrimental to happiness. My husband still has it.
This may seem like a cooky analogy and I apologize if I seem like a crazy person but I love that my husband plays games. He has this light and easy side of him that I don’t have and I think will be crucial to raising our child. He’s never going to be too busy to throw a ball around in the backyard. Never going to be annoyed by a child countlessly asking him to tell him a story he has to vividly make up with his imagination. Never going to mind playing on the floor with them for hours with building blocks or Legos or anything else you can think of. Because this is an area he strives in, among countless others. He still has that glow. That wonder and excitement from something as small as playing a game.
I realize not all men who play video games share in what I see in my husband but that’s okay. His playing shows me how creative and imaginative he his. How he can spend hours at something and never tire shows such stamina I lose somewhere down the line. I love knowing that this child is coming into the world where I know their father will always listen, always play, always laugh and play games and have fun! Fun, something so very important that seems to get pushed to the sidelines now a days and honestly it is what I want to be the in the forefront of raising this child. And with Alex by my side, this will be more than easy. 🙂
ohmandajean 