So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
I’m in my 40s and have been a gamer since the original Nintendo and Oregon Trail days. I really enjoy being able to talk about games with the younger members of my family. I even keep old games and consoles around so that I can introduce new generations to some of classic games (classic as in great, not “old”). Some of the greatest stories that I’ve ever experienced have come from games.
There has definitely been a shift in culture around video games, but they’re so new - relative to other “entertainment” activities - that I think it will take a generation or two before it goes fully from “something for the kids” to “just another thing adults do for fun”. When I’m old enough that my arthritic fingers can no longer move a controller there better be a brain-scanning headset that lets me play Diablo IX with my mind or I’m gonna be pissed.
As to dating / relationships, my only advice is to find someone who respects your hobbies as part of who you are, even if it’s something that they aren’t interested in.