WARNING: Gaming is NOT Impressive

I met a nice guy at church who told me his life ambition was to become a professional gamer.

I've heard every argument to the benefits of gaming. I'm still not convinced. Because basically what it really all boils down to is gaming is a life substitute, an escape. And not a very healthy one in any respect.

I show interest in it for the sake of friends and family because they enjoy it and I care about their interests. But I don't want to marry someone invested in it and here is why:

If you compare generations that never had video games to the ones that do. There is a very distinct difference between initiative, work ethic, life style, spirituality, and character.
I've watched the long term negative effects unfold in the lives of friends and family and I have yet to witness a positive effect. This is a twenty-five year observation.

I don't know the opinions of other women on gaming but when I look at a guy and he says his past time is gaming, I imagine what a marriage with that would be like:

Variations of this pop into my head every time.
In the same duration of life that my friends and I lived, while they gamed I learned how to play violin, piano, bind hand made books, sew, read countless books, create countless pieces of art, compose music, served others, went to college, put money in savings, learned how to maintain a vehicle, had consistent jobs, and many other things. My friends and I suffer from variations of depression and anxiety. Before I was medicated, depression for me has been so severe I suffered brief periods where I couldn't function. But I still lived a productive life without resorting to gaming to escape. Often artwork was my escape, its side effect was entertaining others.

I am certainly not naive to gaming. I played plenty of Mario Cart, Super Mario, Super Smash Bros, Star Fox, Halo, Zelda, and Star Craft, with friends and family as a kid. But I eventually stopped completely.
Because of what family and friends have shown and told me about it since, I've had entire in depth conversations with people on games that I have never seen nor played and yet people are shocked when they learn I have never seen nor played any of the games we had just spoken of. I know what is in these games, how they are produced, the stories, the goals, I have even participated a tiny bit in making a student made video game. I am well educated on them.

So my total disgust with gaming is no secret when I see what its done to people. So why would I want a husband who's dedicated significant portions of his life to a GAME and gained nothing?
To me its a show of lack of prioritization, discipline, and lost potential.
It is not a life skill, you can't put it on a resume, its not attractive, and it has little value in real life.

If I'm going to weather tough times with a man in matrimony, I can be choosy on this.

Guilty of Being Tough

Being single is tough.
And being a single girl, at least from my perspective, is tougher.
Growing up I had the devoted attention of bullies at school and then was uncontested sport for siblings at home. So to survive I had to find a defense system.
I began with the discipline of unresponsiveness to physical and verbal attack, or "boot camp". Human beings, like predators in the wild, are stimulated by prey that runs or shrieks. But if prey is boring, like a possum, the predators lose interest.

This was only partially effective so I had to begin adding armor. First was the cloaking device.

The actual art of social invisibility where one learns how to not attract attention from their peers. But this also meant you didn't exist either. So in Jr. High I had no name so I was dubbed: "Hey you" or addressed "Nerd." This method is easier in high school when kids' craving for blood has ebbed with their desensitization to nature's hormone overload.

The next set of armor is accumulated over time and better known as "batman's belt."

In elementary all my friends were on different vacation tracks than me so I spent most recesses alone. My friends were also never in the same classes so when it came to group projects I was always whittled off to the dysfunctional groups. These are those fabulous kids that have severe apathy and have the initiative of a wet sock so I was the one that had to carry the group to save my grade.
So over the years I had to accumulate skills, tricks, and facts that allowed me to survive alone what was meant to be done with several people.

My crowning example of this is one day my very bored teacher up and decided we were going to have a snowball competition. He took our class out back to some freshly fallen pristine packing snow in the field. Right off about eight boys grouped up and began rolling up a whopper of a snow ball.
The other groups were at least 3 to 4 strong. Once again, being deprived of my friends I set off by myself and began rolling one on my own. Two girls noticed that I was doing surprisingly well so they rather suddenly became friendly and asked to join me. They walked along side as I continued rolling and sweating behind the growing ball alone. When the competition ended I had the second largest snowball next to the group of eight dudes. *Nods* I had something on my belt for that.
This has essentially been my life story from kindergarten to my college degree. Not by choice but by necessity.

Along with batman's belt I needed heavy artillery to survive. Not the kind that has US ARMY stenciled on it but the kind that has DeWalt branded on the side.

Once I had a car I began to learn really fast that mechanics shops are hives of dishonesty and its way easy to take advantage of people who don't know diddly-squat about cars.
"*Tsk Tsk* "Man, tie rods? Those are a doozy that's gonna cost $400 to replace those."
Half hour later with my older brother and his tie rod remover we had them replaced for $60.
So the heavy artillery is street smarts and life skills. The more you can do on your own, the less chances you'll have of getting screwed by retail services.
I suddenly made a hobby of accumulating skills. I found having skills very reassuring and I slept better at night because I wasn't at the mercy of strangers.

The next set of armor is shielding. Toughness to endure discomfort, threats, and trials. The giant mech-suit of invulnerability.

1 in 5 women have been raped in the U.S. I always imagined that if someone tried to do that to me...well, I plan on sending them to a hospital or a morgue. In no small way do I feel vulnerable. I'm haunted by the frequent news stories of women on their morning walks getting assaulted and psychos breaking into single girls housing. I had a past co worker who was armed with pepper spray and had security officers nearby and still got sexually assaulted at a train station and didn't get rescued and couldn't get to her spray.

So while my friends were orienting their life trajectory I was going to college alone riding the 3 hour round trip on the bus until the train opened then it was about a 2 hour round trip. But if there's one thing cheep transportation attracts its weirdos.
Since I was young I've loved jackets and as I've grown up I've somewhat suspected jackets are my security blanket. Because once I started taking those long rides and encountering scary people I got me a big tough pilot looking jacket with the furry flip up collars and loud zippers. It made my arms look far less stick like and made me look just a bit more intimidating. I don't know how well it worked but I felt safer in it.

Now that I'm getting nearer age thirty I've had to continue accumulating these belt gizmos, artillery, and shields so that I can survive life alone as well as possible. But I worry that, with my already macho upbringing, that my toughness has made me coarse and intimidating to men.

Tenderness is something that is more needed in the world and I forget that tenderness is good. I don't want to be tougher than my man, I'd like to have a rescuer for once. I don't know if there is a man that can either help me lower my shields or see through the UV protective glass and see that there's a big eyed tender girl inside that can let go the joy stick and let the dude show me how its done.

Holding out for a Hero

"Where have all the good men gone?

Where are all the gods?

Where is that street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?"

Here were a few that I met:

Now I’ve had my say with my frustrations with men and dating, it’s only fair to give just dues to the heroes I’ve met among them.

Through elementary school I was ostracized and bullied. I was an ugly duckling, probably suffered from depression and anxiety, seldom wore trending clothing, and what few friends I had were always off track, and I was nice to my teachers which was as good as a social death sentence. There was one kid who wasn’t unkind to me who was in my classes maybe once or twice. His nick name was Willy Wonka because his name was Will and he loved chocolate. One day after the bell had rung to go home I was heading for the bus when Will came up, seized my back pack and swung me around by it. I was outraged but he began to explain that the other kids had dared him to. My younger brother Brandon, who had caught him in the act, charged up and gave him a good football tackle. This was daring for my brother because Brandon was in the third grade and Will was in the sixth grade. I held Will back while Brandon escaped. Will was apologetic and unhostile so I never did hold a grudge probably because I was so proud of my younger brother who had come to my rescue.

That was the first major encounter I had with Will. In Junior high I found out he actually liked me and maybe even had a crush. We were good friends after that. He was the first boy to like me and to a girl who was made to feel like worthless crap by others, just knowing he liked me was the most liberating thing he did for me. He ended up moving away in the eighth or ninth grade but we corresponded for a while and I still have his letters which were sweet and intelligent. We lost contact though and I haven’t heard from him since. The last I heard about him was in high school, some of his old friends said he got lung cancer. I don’t know if he survived that battle and haven’t been able to find him. He’s not appeared on any social media and if I could ever find him would like to express my gratitude to him for being my friend during a time when I often felt all males were set on my emotional destruction. Though he was young he acted honorably like a man and treated me like a lady, as a boy only could in the seventh grade.

In church I was as popular among the youth as I was at school. I sat in youth meetings with an empty seat on either side of me almost every Sunday. But the stake patriarch became an unlikely friend. He was mild in temperament, soft spoken, and 3 times a doctorate. But, this serious mannered elder was one of the first non-related adult fans of my artwork. He always encouraged me to show him my corny cartoons and he showed a genuine amusement in them that bolstered my self-esteem in the most nurturing of ways. If there was one thing an insecure beginning artist needed was a devoted fan. And having the support of one so esteemed gave me validation that’s lasted me to the present day.

Having a nearly nonexistent relationships with my grandfathers, the elderly gentlemen whom my dad introduced me to at church when I was around eight or nine, became a surrogate grandfather to me. I visited him and he would tell me his life stories of his five missions, his award winning rabbits (102 ribbons I think), his adventures selling ice cream to the navy, and riding on top of trains. He doted on me as grandfathers do with ice cream, treats, and random gifts like nice pens he found working at the D.I. that I treasured for years. And of course, every Sunday he gave me a handful of star bursts. He was my friend from elementary school to high school. At his funeral I was permitted to join the family at the closing of the casket. He was an example of a solid testimony, work ethic, and a gentleman.

There have been other boys in my life who have been my friends and were generous and kind. So I know that good men are out there, the challenge is finding the one I want to spend eternity with.

"Because it’s gonna take a Superman to sweep me of my feeeeet. I need a hero!"

Pillow-Pillar

Sole Mate

Mom once said that dating is like trying on shoes. Now I take it further. Some shoes look fabulous but give you blisters. Other shoes aren't much for appearances but feel awesome. And some shoes are AMAZING but you can't afford them.

But you know the shoe that best suits you is out there.
I've had some dates where my date and I wordlessly agreed that it wasn't happening. We were polite,  spoke as if we might speak again, and then neither of us did. Either side of the party doesn't necessarily have to do anything wrong the sparks simply don't fly.
Like trying on a shoe that seems like you should love it but when you look in the mirror it just isn't the right look. Be it personality or principles that don't match; that's okay. The journey is hit and miss. It just gets very tiring. Your socks get sweaty and stretched out after trying on shoes then you just feel hungry and want to go home. It was fun at the start but when you keep striking out you no longer look forward to it. But in the actual case of dating people my age don't have the necessity of fasting from dating like you can shopping. Lots of pressure.

Finding a sole mate or soul mate is work and sometimes it just rubs funny and you just want to run around in socks for a week to a few months after fruitless shopping sprees.

Groundhog Dating

Online dating reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day. It's about a meteorologist who goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to report on the Ground Hog Day festival but the freeway gets snowed in and he’s trapped there. The next day it’s Groundhog Day again and everything repeats exactly the same and he can’t escape. He’s there for an indeterminate amount of time re-living the same day over and over and he’s the only one who’s aware of it.

How is this like online dating?

Because you have to have the SAME conversation with different guys over and over and over and over.

What do you do with your time?

What’s your family like?

What are your dreams?

What’s your favorite shows, music?

Why do you dress up your sister’s cat?

I’ve only been through three online dating resources: LDS Singles, Tinder, and LDS Planet. It was virtual suffering for me.

First of all, (I don’t browse the women so I don’t know what their mistakes are but here are my observations of the men) Many have HORRIBLE profile pictures.

They look like they used their mug shot from prison. Stony faced, cold, threatening.

Other’s use shots of them from a distance. Yeeeeah. Are you saying I want to keep my distance for your first impression?

Basically, a good rule of thumb, gents, is eliminate anything that could make a girl browsing your profile say: “There’s a reason why.”

He’s hiding his hair, “There’s a reason why.”

He has no close ups of his face, “There’s a reason why.”

Why does he weigh 300 pounds?  “There’s a reason why.”

Basically, solve your big issues before publishing yourself. Lose weight for yourself, though, not for someone else. If you couldn’t lose weight for yourself what makes you think you’re going to improve for your spouse once you put a ring on her?  If you’re having problems with being attractive, find styles that enhance your best features. They say there’s no such thing as ugly women just poor women, so what about the guys? If you’re losing your hair and it’s making dating difficult, then make your baldness work for you. Shave off the comb over, and assume a style that suits it. If you’re uncomfortable with your shiny dome then she will be too. A good example of a guy who does it right is Vin Diesel. He owns baldness.

Here, something with good tips from Google: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Average-Guy-Attractive. DO your homework. Homework is the easy part. 

Dress alone can make or break success.

I heard a saying once: lingerie to men are suits to women. Which means, if panties on a woman make men swoon, a suit on a guy is going to make a woman swoon.

I’m not saying you have to dress up ALL the time, I’m talking about FIRST impressions. Because once you have her attention then she’ll probably like you in anything that doesn’t make you look like a total slob or hobo.
Like, once my grampa told my younger brother to wear a suit coat and he just wore it over a t-shirt. He had not only attention from girls but from impressed adults who commented on his snazziness.

It’s not hard to find solutions dudes. Women do it CONSTANTLY. Return the favor. 

What resulted in the happy ending for Phil Connors on Groundhog Day was interesting. After failed attempts to get the woman he had a crush on through many comedic methods, he tried to be exactly what she wanted in a man but she could tell it wasn’t real. He finally got her when he became a better man for his own sake then she fell in love with him because, incidentally, the best version of himself was exactly what she wanted.