Editor’s note: Check out Chris’ humorous look at the dating life of a hardcore gamer. It’s tough going when your passion is something the other person couldn’t give two hoots about. -James
“What the hell do I do?”
The movie was playing. Maybe I should have picked something more romantic. But how could I have not chosen The Boondock Saints? She said that she hadn’t seen it yet! I guess I didn’t think this one through all the way. Since I’ve already seen the movie 79 times, I got up and went to the kitchen to make some popcorn. I forgot that someone who hates me programmed the microwave’s popcorn setting.
I walked back into the room with a bag of burnt popcorn and poured it into a bowl. Despite being lactose intolerant, I smothered it with butter, and added a lot of salt.
She just looked at me and smiled. Seeing as her taste buds still work, she wasn’t going to eat it, but she at least thought it was funny that I tried. I ended up eating the entire bowl — to show her how much of a man I am — but I didn’t unlock an Achievement at the end (unless you consider a stomach ache from the butter to be one of Sony’s bronze trophies).
It was really easy to woo this girl at the party last weekend. I’m a smooth talker, and my mom and some guy at work say I’m quite an attractive guy. Unfortunately, I’m like a dog chasing cars. Once I have one, I don’t really know what to do with it. All of my relationships have been one night stands or complete failures. I’m good at the beginning steps, and the last steps, but put me in a room with a girl for any prolonged period of time to “hang out,” and I’m screwed.
Despite my extensive time with Persona 4, this relationship thing isn’t working out so well. The girl was crazy about me, but I didn’t know what to do with her! So I took a gamble — and I hate gambling.
“Do you want to play some video games?”
“What? Like Mario?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“No, I don’t like video games.”
Great. I don’t know why I thought that was going to work. Let’s see: What kind of chick shit do I know how to do? We could just skip to fooling around, but that would defeat the purpose of this whole social engagement thing. When did I become such a wimp? Time to bust out the uninspired date ideas.
“You hungry?”
“Yeah, I could eat.”
“Let’s go eat dinner and see a movie then.”
“We just saw a movie.”
“Well…let’s just see another one…at the theater.”
“Alright.”
That went about as smoothly as I expected it to. We got dinner at one of the nice restaurants at the mall, but she didn’t want to talk about herself much. I pried as hard as I could, but apparently I needed a near perfect charisma level to persuade this girl into saying anything. She told me what school she goes to, her major, and that she enjoys breathing oxygen and fighting against gravity, and when she’s not doing that, she’s sleeping. It didn’t take long before I completely exhausted her dialogue tree. Any further attempt at talking to her resulted in the response, “I want to hear about you.” Great, she’s a god damn NPC. Luckily for me, I love talking about me! Those of you who have met me in person can attest to this.
I spoke about myself all throughout dinner, and eventually, even I ran out of shit to say (I know! Can you believe it?). I was freaking bored out of my mind. We sat awkwardly for a few minutes while waiting for the check. She didn’t want to hear about games, she didn’t want to hear about Bitmob, she laughed at any reference to my stand up comedy whether it was funny or not. I don’t know why I ever recruited her — worst party member ever.
We walked a short distance to the movie theater, and I thought to myself, “Well, at least this is a good chance to watch something romantic.” Three quarters of the way through the movie I realized that it wasn’t very romantic. She didn’t seem into it at all, but I decided to enjoy the movie anyway. As we walked out of The Boondock Saints 2, I gave her my jacket because she seemed cold, and I held her hand. I realized how cold it was and quickly regretted my decision.
I drove her back to her house, and I waited for her to get out of the car. She sat for a minute silently, and I knew what she wanted, but I was hoping she’d just leave.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
Is that what it was going to take to get her out of my car? I got off easy. I kissed her for a few seconds, and she asked if I was going to call her. I lied and said yes, despite the fact that I had already deleted her from my phone during the movie.
“Do you want to come in?”
The moment of truth: Did I suck up my pride and take care of business, or did I drive off and play video games? I thought back to the replay of the night so far. She seemed to really like me, but she didn’t like video games, which I consider to be a big part of my life. Out of the blue, I decided how I was going to make my decision. Was it fair? No. Did I care? Not really.
“What’s Mario for?”
“What do you mean?”
“What system can you play Mario on?”
“I think my brother has it for his Xbox.”
“Get out of the car.”
The End.
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I’m a comedian, writer, electrical engineer, and all around terrible person. Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CasualAlcoholic
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