With Valentine’s Day coming tomorrow, fake holiday or not, I thought I’d talk a bit today about how My Lovely Bride and I will be enjoying our Valentine’s weekend. Why should this matter to you? Well, we’ve been together for over 33 years, so maybe how we celebrate might give y’all ideas for how to build a strong connection with your partner?
Just a thought. Anyway…
I’ll tell you right now, we don’t waste our time doing the usual things for Valentine’s Day. Going out to dinner, going to a movie, that sort of thing… Waste of time! Everyone else is doing that, it makes for crowded venues and just a pain in the ass, overall.
Instead, we game together.
When we first got together, back in the early 90’s, we played tabletop roleplaying games (lots of “Shadowrun” and “World of Darkness” adventures), or “Magic: The Gathering”. Later on, we would play video games like “World of Warcraft”, “Rift”, and “Lord of the Rings Online”, because what’s more romantic than crushing skulls together in an MMORPG?
But now, we’ve changed things up. Nowadays, we might make a special dinner to share at home, maybe watch a movie afterwards, then we’ll break out our respective gaming consoles and play something.
What we play doesn’t matter, nor what we play it on. For example, maybe I’ll be playing “Starfield” on our Xbox Series X, while she’s playing “Balatro” on her Nintendo Switch. Or maybe we’ll be playing “Vampire Survivors” on our respective Switches, just not together. The point here is, though, that we will be playing games in each other’s presence, just not the same game together.
I know this may seem odd, but trust me, it matters.
Look, when we would play games together (be it a CCG, and MMORPG, and to a lesser extent a TTRPG), sometimes one or the other of us might get annoyed. Games can be frustrating sometimes, and while we love each other, sometimes playing together can ruin the evening due to this frustration.
But just playing single-player games in each other’s presence is just awesome. Seriously, it is.
For example, let’s say we’re playing “Balatro” on our respective Switches. We are having a great time playing our games, and we can talk to each other about said games, offer advice, and just share the experience. Rather than sit quietly and do our own thing, as most might think this is, we’re actively enjoying each other’s gaming fun.
We are just two best friends having fun together. If you don’t think that is one of the most romantic things you can do together, then you haven’t been together for decades. Just saying.
Anyway, that’s how we’ll be spending our Valentine’s weekend, strengthening our relationship through video games. I think you might find this useful advice for your own relationship, but again, your mileage might vary.
