A Gamer Girls Experience

I’m not sure why being a gamer and a girl is such a strange concept for so many people, but being a female gamer, I’ve been met with a lot of different reactions. Especially from other women who think I’m either a cheap floozie trying to get laid or an inept social outcast nerd who couldn’t get a paid date. That would at least explain why I would spend time trying to accomplish a goal (albeit in a game) instead of brushing my hair in the mirror 100 times.

I grew up the same way as most other people have and didn’t have brothers in my house to steer me towards gaming. I’ve always had waves of wanting to play games and then putting them on the back burner. I remember begging my parents at Kmart to buy me Super Nintendo when it came out and playing for hours on end. I loved going to the Laundromat and playing Street Fighter, Pac Man, etc. If you heard the bee-like sound in Galaga, you knew you had to step your game up. I remember daydreaming about getting over 500 pounds of meat when hunting in Oregon Trail, but it would never come to fruition. I would figure these memories would be the same for most children, female and male, but I guess they’re not.

When high school hit, I focused on dating, my job, my future, and a whole mess of other things I probably shouldn’t have been focusing on. It wasn’t until I dated a gamer in my 20s that my love for gaming was rekindled. I will admit, it started small with crap like Mario Party and Super Monkey Ball. Then it moved to WoW and as much as I sucked against the people I played, I loved Dark Stalkers and Marvel vs. Capcom. I still play WoW when I have the time (and a functional computer) and the most expensive purchase that I’ve made in the past 2 years was a PS3 for which I’ve bought and played a number of games with it (mostly RPG, but whatever-at least it’s not a Wii). Even though I have moved on from the world of dating gamers, I still have a love for gaming and appreciate the medium.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if the women that criticize female gamers look to their past, I’m pretty sure they’ll find that they too enjoyed some game in their youth, even if it was something as shitty as a Polly Pocket interactive cd. That and they probably need to get laid. By a gamer.

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