The Tragic Consequences of Mixing Love and Video Games

You adulation arena first-person shooters. You aswell adulation your cogent other. Wouldn't it be abundant if you could somehow amalgamate the two? Afresh you could adulation everything, all at once. Yeah!

Don't do it. It's a trap.

The Setup

I met this girl, let's alarm her Frannie, while I was complex in theater. I was arena Romeo in an all-male assembly of R&J. We staged it in a three-theater space, and she was acting in a agreeable caricature down the hall. She was tall, leggy, and she could sing her face off. I was, well, Romeo. We hit it off and started dating. Aggregate was great. Then, afterwards a month, the Xbox came out. She got one. We got the aboriginal Halo. Then, things got even better.

The Acceptable Times

Frannie brought the Xbox over to my place, and we started arena a attack together. Ancillary by side, we battled the Covenant. We aggregate our victories, our defeats, and our frustrations. We artificial a trust. We developed a way of alive together. We were strong. The bold engulfed our lives and the accord was perfect. If Frannie came over, it was all food, sex, and video games. We were falling in love. We were unstoppable. So unstoppable, in fact, that we eventually exhausted the game. It was a august celebration of the heart.

Awesome. So now what? We thought: We adulation anniversary other, and we adulation Halo—the bold that brought us so close—and we don't wish to stop playing. So we absitively to battle.

The Bad Times

This was a huge mistake. The change wasn't actual or dramatic, but it was noticeable, like watching a behemothic ocean liner alpha to accomplish a huge U-turn. We weren't arena with anniversary added any more. We were arena against anniversary other. Her victories were my defeats, and carnality versa. She was competitive. I was competitive. We would admeasurement anniversary added up and try to get into anniversary other's heads. We best afar the other's defenses and strategies. We started fighting. We accomplished a abrupt declivity in animal activity. That was a red flag. But it was annihilation compared to what happened next.

She Was a Controller-Thrower

I prevailed in a decidedly hard-fought battle. And then, with a sidearm sling, it went flying. Her controller. Beyond the allowance and into a wall. "You're a controller-thrower!" I gasped. "Whatever," she said. She didn't anticipate it was a big deal. I audibly bethink thinking: "Whoa, who IS this?"

I had developed up with ambassador throwers—kids that couldn't handle a accident in Street Fighter II, hucked the controller, and stormed out of the room. I didn't like it then, if we were twelve, so what was I to accomplish of this affectionate of behavior from a woman in her mid-twenties? Regardless, accomplished acquaintance had accomplished me how to handle it.

Playing to Lose

Growing up, a amount of my accompany were poor losers. Aboriginal on, I'd abstruse that if anyone loses all the time, they get frustrated, and afresh they stop absent to play. I just capital to accumulate playing. So if there was a bold that I was way bigger at, sometimes I'd yield a dive, absolution my acquaintance exhausted me. He'd break interested, and he'd wish to accumulate going. So, this is what I started accomplishing with Frannie in Halo. Generally speaking, it formed appealing well. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes she'd exhausted me fair and square. But the bold arrangement lived at my place, so I was accepting better, faster. This strategy, however, accepted unsustainable.

One day, we were playing, and I was in the zone. We had been fighting—in absolute life—earlier that day. She was in a bad mood, and was demography it out on me. So, you apperceive what? No mercy. I unleashed a Costco-sized can of afterlife on her. Again, and again, and again. It was a bloodbath. Finally the ambassador flew beyond the room—again—and I got a bed feeling. She angry to me and said, "Have you been absolution me win all this time?" The jig was up. "Only sometimes?" I replied. Cue: Behemothic access of rage. I was a arrogant asshole. We were done with Halo. Maybe we were done, period.

Seeing It Through the Rear-View

Looking back, it's simple to see the mistakes that were made. Halo wasn't any added to accusation for the abolition of our accord any added than it could be accustomed for the architecture of it. The holes were already there, Halo just shined a ablaze through them. Frannie took the Xbox aback to her place. The accord ambled on for addition few months, but we were sinking, and we both knew it. We bankrupt up. Afterwards a admirable cat-and-mouse period, we accept acquired into acceptable friends.

I've abstruse that defeat can acknowledge a allotment of a being that you don't wish to see. It's bigger to play on the aforementioned team—in adulation and video games.

UPDATE: My buzz just rang and whose face did I see? Frannie's. She anticipation this accomplished affair was amusing (thank god), but she had a cartilage to aces about one detail. The way Frannie remembers it, she acicular the ambassador onto the bed. "Those aboriginal controllers were abundant as shit. If I'd befuddled it beyond the allowance it would accept agape a aperture in your wall." Hmmm, that's not how I remembered it, but it's possible. Either way, Frannie adapted to accept a articulation in this.

Thanks, Frannie, for reminding me why you're my admired ex-girlfriend.

Image credit: Shutterstock/Stéphane Bidouze

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