Making time to play?

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Mycota648 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

My girlfriend isnt a bad person. She just gets upset when I play video games because I literally zone everything else out. She will talk to me and I wont even hear her. So essentially she feels like I am ignoring her, and in reality I am.

I think a major issue is that I work way more than her. She gets a few hours on each side of my shifts to herself. When I leave in the morning she is there and when I get home at night she is there. Not that this upsets me, i love being around her. I just dont think she realizes how much a hour or two to yourself can really help you have fun, destress, etc... She probably has never thought that I never get that. I will probably have a talk with her about this.

I don't care if you like model trains, running marathons, or playing 16-year old elf sims: your girlfriend may not be a bad person, but if she can't give you the time/space to enjoy whatever your hobby is then there's something unhealthy about the relationship.

This was a bit of an issue when my wife and I first started dating, because she (along with many women in our society) sort of thought that co-dependency = healthy relationship. Once she learned/felt secure enough in the fact that we would still spend time together, she relaxed and stopped being offended when I wanted to spend time on my hobbies.

Now it's to the point where unless Game of Thrones is on (or some other show we watch together) I just play EQ without even thinking about her. And likewise she just watches terrible terrible reality TV shows (with headphones, thank god) without worrying about me. So I think talking to your GF is an excellent idea, and hopefully it helps you two get to the kind of relationship my wife and I have.


P.S. And oh yeah, get a new job. I'm actually a programmer at a genetic screening software company, and we have several bio PhDs on staff. Of course they have doctorates, not undergraduate degrees, and a lot of them learned to program on the side, but the point is they're bio people working in a non-lab environment. It's a big world out there, and if you look I strongly suspect you have career options that don't involve crappy pay and excessive hours in a laboratory.