Talk Nerdy to Me: Confessions post plays into false idea regarding gender, gamers’ identities

This one’s dedicated to the girl who recently submitted the confession on Pacific’s Confessions page about keeping her video game hobby a secret. For the rest of you that actually have lives and don’t follow the confessions page, the statement went like this:

“I go on dates with guys, and of course they ask what I do for fun. I always leave out that I love video games because I don’t look like a girl who plays them and the guys usually lose interest in me if I tell them I’m secretly a video game nerd.”

Whoa. Female video gamers? What’s next, females carrying our young inside of them and giving birth? Stay out of men’s business, ladies. Seriously though, let’s dissect this post.

I’ll start with the part about you not looking like a girl who plays video games. What are you exactly implying here? I don’t really think that anyone needs to have a certain “look” to play video games, and this part of the statement is kind of problematic. Not that I believe you intended to really insult anyone, but you’re effectively creating a strict definition of who should be allowed to play video games, when in reality everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, appearance or religion has the ability and right to play video games.

You don’t have to look a certain way. It is the diversity of the gaming community that allows video games to flourish.

Second, neither you nor anybody else should be ashamed of liking video games to the point where you suppress it deep down in order to impress someone who doesn’t appreciate the hobby.

Altering a large part of your personality simply to impress someone else can be damaging, and if these people you’re dating can’t bear to spend time with you simply because of the fact that they don’t like that you play video games, then they’re really not worth your time.

There’s a really large, awesome gaming community out there (I will admit, the Gamergate crisis was absolutely terrible, though), and if you, and other people out there as well, can’t find someone who digs video games as much as you do, I can only sincerely hope that you’ll find someone who accepts you for who you are. But don’t hide something you love doing or attempt to radically change yourself to please others.

Best of luck to everyone dealing with these sorts of issues, whether they involve video games or not!