So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
It’s not age related. It’s generational.
You’re at the end of Gen X (as am I), meaning most of the women of your age group that you’re probably dating didn’t really grow up around video games and probably still see them as a wasteful, childish pastime, which was the general, parochial view of our parents’ generation about our hobbies. (Sure, endlessly watch people play sports on television but never waste your time doing something you personally enjoy.)
Meanwhile, those even a few years younger than us grew up in a generation where more and more girls grew up with video games, have a more personal relationship with them, and understand the value of the hobby. That’s only increased with time.
My own wife, who is at the older end of the Millenials, grew up playing video games with her younger brothers but never had any real affinity for them. She’s never particularly cared about my gaming (something I do now with my daughter), though she’s never taken interest in playing anything herself.
Ultimately, you’ll probably just have to choose a better class of date.
That’s my thought as well, however here’s an interesting data point that might suggest otherwise:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/300513/gaming-by-demographic-group-uk/
Since it covers 8 years, which is the size of one of their cohorts, I would’ve expected the percentages to increase for a given age range over time, as that age gets taken over by a newer generation. With the exception of the COVID boom, though, the numbers have stayed pretty static, or decreased slightly, which doesn’t suggest a generational component.
It could be there’s too much noise in the data, a flaw in the survey method, or a change in understanding of what it means to be “a gamer,” but would contradict my assumption if true.
True, though that’s also the UK. They probably have a different attitude toward games than I’m used to and have any experience with. I’m mostly speaking from the viewpoint of different generations in American culture. There’s still a certain amount of viewing gaming as a wasteful pastime with no value that permeates multiple cultures even to this day.
Yeah it’s definitely a generational thing. My girlfriend and I are both 35 and we both lkay games, although not like we used to because we are so busy with work and whatnot.