sim husband

"i can't take out the garbage right now woman, my dwarf is poisoned!!"

and it goes on and on..

computer gamers may not be the hunkiest slabs of beefcake on the block, but that doesn't mean that some women can't be tricked into loving us. take my girlfriend - please!

some of you may be surprised to know that i am, in fact, taken. blame the blog hosts, or my media handlers. like the beatles before me, who, at the height of their popularity, were told to keep their relationships quiet lest the lovesick teeny boppers learn the truth and stop buying records, i must maintain an aura of "availability" so that female readers will renew their time of thin blood subscriptions in hopes of someday possibly scoring with me.

the sad truth though, ladies, is that i am, taken. i know, i know it's a heartbreaker. i'm sorry. guys like me don't come around that often, it's true. that pasty, almost radioactive, skin tone, that simultaneously frail and underweight physique, that roguish but vaguely depressing lack of ambition. mom always told you i was out there somewhere, didn't she? and now you find out i'm no longer available. that's gotta hurt.

actually, the real reason why my girlfriend hasn't appeared very often on this blog (other than the restraining order, i mean) is that, well, frankly, she's not a gamer. computer games are to her what the rest of life is to us: not important.

you may ask: how is this even possible? is she alien? i'm no scientist. i have a bachelor's degree in pinball, but i believe that the gamer gene must be programmed into our DNA. you either have it or you don't. i've tried over the years to get the girlfriend interested in this rewarding pastime of ours, but to no avail.

here is a brief chronological history of my attempts and the results so far:

years ago..

me: look at this game, myst. it's incredible. it comes on a cd-rom. it looks like a painting!
her: did you remember to pay the rent today?

couple years ago..

me: c'mere quick! you have got to see half-life. it's like a great scary movie. look! look at that freakin' head crab!
her: did you remember to pay the rent?

a year ago..

me: now here's the game for you. it's called the sims. even non gamers love it. it's like a living dollhouse. look - that guy is going to the bathroom on the floor.
her: you forgot to pay the rent again, didn't you?

let me make one thing perfectly clear: i am not bitter. sure, at times i've wished that she were the kind of woman who realized that leveling up liberty lad is more important than tackling the two weeks' worth of dishes i've let pile up in the sink. and yeah, i've fantasized about being one of those lucky guys who marries a female gamer and has hot friday night sessions of naked counterstrike on the home LAN when everybody's asleep.

but the honest truth is that i don't need another gamer in the house. having someone around who pays attention to the real world does have its advantages. meals, for example. shelter. actual, non NPC, real life friends. the last time we threw a party at our house, my girlfriend had to completely redo the invitation list, because when i did it, the top three names were Minsc, Cate Archer, and Man-Bot.

and then there's the parenting issue. i've already, regrettably, turned my 4 year old son into a bona fide dork who calls me in the middle of the day desperately trying to process in his head whether Count Dooku was Darth Sidious' new sith apprentice or not.

that's my influence. also from me: gollum imitations, surefire procrastination tricks, and a true geek's appreciation of widescreen dvd's. from the ladies we have, among other things: language, intelligence, social skills, cultural awareness, and morals. it's kind of a yin/yang thing we have going on in our house.

the point of all this is simply to say to the missus: thank you. thanks for putting up with me. we gamers like to feel sorry for ourselves when civilians like yourself can't quite understand why we get all worked up over these stupid games. we get resentful knowing that you think this pastime is useless in the grand scheme of things. the secret truth is that, deep down, we know you're right. and we love you for letting us indulge.

this article is dedicated to jeff green, the ultimate sim father.

somebody hit me over the head with a virtual frying pan please.