Men too obsessed with video games
The problem of male obsessive video game playing is not easily resolved by their female friends.
COMMENTARY
Lauren Cates

It is a normal fact in life that guys and girls will have their differences. From shopping to watching football incessantly, at times we are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

But one of the most prominent mysteries of the male species I have encountered as of late is an obsessive tendency to play video games.

I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. I understand that everybody is entitled to their choice of leisure activities. But when all my guy friends are in a perpetual stupor over games such as “Halo” and “Tiger Woods PGA Tour,” it is hard to remain sympathetic when all you asked for was a simple hello or acknowledgment that you exist.

My girlfriends and I concocted a secret plan to get our guys back for all the hours they’ve ignored us or showed up late to our sister’s weddings because of a game that they swore would be over in 15 minutes. We decided to buy an Xbox or GameCube or PlayStation 2 (we really can’t tell the difference between any of them) and secretly spend hours becoming really good at playing video games. Then, next time we were at a gathering being ignored we would ask to play, admitting it was our “first time,” and beat them all at their favorite game.

Needless to say, we never got around to it. Why do girls object so much? Terrell Carter, a junior biology major, said, “It’s rude and annoying when we’re asked over to a guy’s house to hang out and then ignored for a pointless game. First it’s football, now it’s video games.”

Maybe it’s the inattention that bothers us, or maybe it’s the inability to comprehend why guys like games so much.

“I like playing video games a lot because it makes me cooler. Even if I can’t be James Bond in real life, at least I can waste lots of time pretending to be him in a game. Plus I get to kick all my friends’ butts,” said Rhett Jones, a junior business major when I asked him about the obsession.

So I turned to my favorite and most serious news source, Glamour magazine, for some better answers.

According to an article entitled “Men explain it all,” in the September issue of Glamour, men love the “joy of the joystick” because they want to believe they’re really in the game. “Video games are the nexus of almost everything we love: sitting around in our underwear, watching stuff blow up and ignoring everything around us,” said Quinton Skinner in the article.

If that’s not an in-depth analysis of the male college psyche, I don’t know what is.

The obsession has gone so far as to convert girlfriends over to the “dark side” that is compulsive video game playing. Sayler Sturkie, a junior marketing major, was forced to play video games in order to be acknowledged by her boyfriend.

“I was tired of being left out all the time so I began to play. Now I’m addicted and need help. Is there some kind of Betty Ford clinic for this type of thing?”

Unfortunately, no.

So it appears that there are no satisfactory answers to the question that is male video game playing. At the risk of sounding trite, if you can’t beat them, join them. Otherwise, women will be exiled to the shopping malls or to watching “Sex and the City” box sets until the madness stops. When this stage passes, and I hope it does, hopefully we’ll have discovered an obsession of our own.

Opinion editor Lauren Cates is a junior advertising/public relations major from Houston.