Comments on: Another Not-So-Bad GF List

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:49:09 +0000

Andrea, I hope my friend doesn’t get mad at me for posting this without asking her, but she made such a good point that I thought that even though this isn’t my interest or cup of tea and I wouldn’t be any good at doing it myself, perhaps I might motivate someone to take on the project:

“A recent Shrub post discusses a few flaws in a mostly-good ‘how to get your girlfriend to play video games’ tutorial. These are all well and good, but am I the only one who feels like this time could have been put to better use by just *editing the damn wiki* so it doesn’t have those problems anymore?”

By: tekanji

tekanji — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:13:32 +0000

Jona: I think you hit the nail on the head; the kind of gamer who typically seeks out girlfriend lists is ignorant and selfish. They want a girl who will do everything they want to do, have sex when they want to, and then when they want to game leave them alone until they’re ready to do something else that involves her. That’s why the lists are constantly written as they are; they cater to the myth that you can do this to your girlfriend and 1) not be an abuser, and 2) she’ll do exactly what you want because the hypothetical girlfriend in most lists (and most of these kind of gamers’ minds) has no agency of her own.

By: Jona

Jona — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:16:55 +0000

How wonderfully ironic that all the information from that list was common sense to me already, without the aid of a “get your girlfriend into gaming” list. Yet for the life of me I dont seem to meet any girls who game/could be persuaded to game, let alone into a situation where we could become friends. I agree that it could have been worse, but I spent most of my time reading through that thinking “is this supposed to be a revelation to me?”. Maybe Im wrong for taking it this way, but its written for a male gamer and written like said male gamer is stupid/ignorant/selfish. Though I suppose I have no reason to complain, as I said its not like I need this list, even if I did want to introduce a friend or partner into gaming.

By: tekanji

tekanji — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:39:30 +0000

DS said:

I think itâ€™s evidence as yet another way in which I fail at being a woman that I absolutely and utterly despise shopping.

Actually, it’s evidence as yet another way in which the stereotypes about women fail real women in that there are many women who feel exactly the way you do.

Sara: Oh, yeah, that’s a really good point. I think I’ve become so sensitive to the people who can only see criticism in what I say and ignore that I also point out good things, that I’ve fallen into the same trap I warned against in this post: giving things a pass because the overall message isn’t bad.

By: Sara

Sara — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:33:43 +0000

I'll have to agree with you for the most part, but I don't like that games like FPS are presented as some kind of all-time gaming achievement (i.e. "If you can get a girl who started out with no interest in video games to enjoy a co-op shooter, you've done well, exceedingly well."). It just seems that they're breaking games down into gender stereotypes that are just as bad, like Mario games are for girls but real (male) gamers play Halo and Grand Theft Auto. That bit rather left a sour taste in my mouth.

By: Darth Sidhe

Darth Sidhe — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:23:26 +0000

I think it’s evidence as yet another way in which I fail at being a woman that I absolutely and utterly despise shopping. Unless it’s for camera/computer accessories and I have a lot of money.

By: Jade Reporting » Blog Archive » March 10

Jade Reporting » Blog Archive » March 10 — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:19:49 +0000

[...] How to Get Your Girlfriend to Play Video Games You can do it! Another Not-So-Bad GF List [...]