When I was in high school, I took it upon myself to read every last bit of the Star Wars Expanded Universe that I could get my hands on. For those of you who are a few thousand dollars richer than me, that’s over 120 novels and a couple of enormous stacks of comic books. Projects like this, dubious as some of them might be, have a certain inherent value. Learning as much as possible about a given subject or working your way through a large piece of literature or a television series teaches you the importance of patience, diligence, and foresight. But it’s not all just about enhancing yourself on an individual basis.
It's almost tripled in size since this picture was taken.
Relationships, I’ve found, can benefit from these “purpose projects” as well. My girlfriend and I have been together since we were 16 — we’re going on seven years next week. She’s not as much of a gamer as me, so I’m a polite boyfriend when it comes to my gaming time. Now that we live together, I’ve limited myself to playing games after she goes to bed or while she’s at work, if I’m feeling particularly unproductive some afternoon. It gives us more time to spend together.
Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s not like she’s completely averse to gaming. She’s a beast at Tetris (a game I won’t play because its ever-increasing pace frightens me to no end), she absolutely dominates at most of the classic Sonic the Hedgehog games, and she loves Mario. Modern video games, other than the occasional round of Mario Party, don’t intrigue her. We tried Portal the other night, and she couldn’t get out of the first room. I don’t hold it against her — I’d hate to have to wrestle her for my Xbox.
I won’t deign to try and give anyone relationship advice, but I will say this: variety is the spice of life. Meghann and I watch a disgusting amount of television together, and I flat-out refuse to disclose some of the trash that we’re watching. The fact is that you can only eat away so much time with mindless, sedentary activities like staring at the same rerun of How I Met Your Mother. Sometimes even going for a photo-trip in a snowed-out park isn’t enough. Sometimes you need projects.
Probably the first picture ever taken of us.
Not sure she even knew about my gaming addiction, yet.
Gaming has brought me and some of my closest friends even closer, and now it’s doing the same for my relationship. Meghann and I have had projects before. Our most recent adventure was working our way through all six seasons of Lost, which we accomplished in a little over three months. It was nice to come home and watch this show together instead of the same old reruns. Yes, I had seen it already, and yes, it’s still television, but we absorbed a piece of art together. It was a project.
For a few weeks after we finished Lost, Meghann and I slipped into our old ways. I think perhaps we just needed to cool down from watching an enormously confusing television series. But our drought ended shortly after Christmas when I decided to bring home my SNES and Nintendo 64. We have a new project now: We’re going to conquer the world — Super Mario World.
Our latest project.
I had brought along with me my favorite SNES cartridge: Super Mario All-Stars. We had to deliberate as to which title we were going to play through first. Right from the outset we were able to eliminate Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. We’re ambitious, but we’re not insane. For the same reasons, we had to also eliminate the first SMB. To be honest, Meghann’s not very good at it, and I refuse to play through the game without warping. I used to exercise my mind in high school by beating SMB in twenty minutes during study hall on my Game Boy SP.
Super Mario Bros. 3 and I have a long, long history. My mother and I used to play it while she was pregnant and I later played through the entire game with my babysitter, as well. I can still remember some of the tricks, and I still hate all of Bowser’s children with a fiery passion. I decided that we’d give this title a try. I love Meghann with all of my heart, but for some reason she’s absolutely terrible at SMB3. We made it to the end of the second world and she had yet to complete a level. It was with a heavy heart that I eliminated this title as well.
Not quite the Mario we're used to.
The bizarre fusion of the disturbing and the hallucinogenic known as Super Mario Bros. 2 was out of the question. I’m awful at that game, and I’m sure that my girlfriend would not have fared well either. However, I did play a few levels to demonstrate the insanity. There were lots of questions: what is Toad’s ability? Are those radishes? Are those pixies with forks? Are you being chased by masks? Did you just throw a jar filled with door potion? Super Mario World it is.
You can’t imagine how happy I am when I get home after a long day of work and Meghann’s sitting in front of the TV, playing SNES by herself. She’ll often lament the fact that she’s been trying to beat the same fortress or ghost house for the last hour and a half, but that’s okay. She’s having fun playing video games! We enjoy ourselves immensely when we finally beat that tough level, or when we finally decide that we’ve had just about as much as we can take of Ludwig von Koopa and his dastardly traps.
Relationships can be a lot like forests of illusion. Sort of.
Admittedly, she spends a lot of time farming us extra lives in the early stages while I try to press on through the more difficult levels, but she’s been known to have a few tricks up her sleeve here and there. It’s teaching me patience as well. After playing Halo: Reach for three hours, there usually arises a great need to play a game that doesn’t involve cutthroat competition.
Yes, sometimes I find myself getting frustrated while she runs headlong into lava without looking, but for the most part I’m learning to sit back and enjoy the ride. We might not unlock all the secret levels or find all the silly colored “!” blocks, but we’re going to give it our best shot. And when we’re tired of Mario, we’ll find something else. Mostly though, it’s just nice that instead of screaming at a television and cursing the sadistic designers who crafted these games by myself, I can do it with someone I love.