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Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Unintentionally Funny Girl Transformation Guide

Is your "chick" just not into the hours you spend in front of the television ignoring her? Change her in five easy steps!

Step 4: Slowly Introduce Her to Gaming
The key to turning a regular chick into a gamer chick is taking it slow and playing games that she is interested in and that are at her skill level. If your girl has never played before, or is slow to pick it up, throwing her head first into a first person shooter or 40 hour RPG is not the way to go. The trick is easing her into it with “chick friendly” games. Once she masters the “chick” games, then let her determine when she is ready to move on to more challenging games. She will progress at her own pace. Don’t push her too fast or she will only get frustrated with her skill (or lack thereof.) I know this may be boring as hell for you at times, but believe me, it will all be worth it. Here is a list of games that are great intros for her:

1. Anything Starring Mario
Unless she grew up living under a rock, she has probably played at least one game of Super Mario Bros. on NES. This gives you the advantage of having a familiar face for her to identify with. Besides that, most Mario games air on the novice side and have pretty simple controls. Plus they have fun, bright graphics and a chick in a pink dress…what girl wouldn’t love that. I would recommend any of the Mario Kart or Mario Party games for a novice player, Luigi’s Mansion or Super Smash Brothers for an intermediate player, or Paper Mario for a more advanced player who might want to put in more time (ie-30+ hours) with a game.


You know, I'm sure they meant well.



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5 comments:

Thomas said...

I was kind of hoping for a step six, where the girl takes off her glasses, shakes down her hair, and becomes a stunning sex goddess. Or is this guide really about reversing the process? Damn you, cheesy teen comedies!

Josh said...

Hehehe.

Yeah, I think this is a five step guide to getting a really good glare.

Seriously, every girlfriend I've had which wanted to game didn't need much cajoling. Either they wanted to try something I was interested in or they saw something shiny in it that they wanted to try.

Someone should try and write a "five step guide to getting men to like Opera." Step Four might be "Anything with Vikings in it. Wagner, something like that" ...

Brinstar said...

I found this bit particularly funny:

Plus they have fun, bright graphics and a chick in a pink dress...what girl wouldn’t love that.

At the start of the thing, the author claims to be a woman. I think I'd punch her even harder than if a guy wrote this because she really should know better.

Josh said...

omg ... I completely overlooked that.

I wonder if eventually this will just stop surprising people. Now that I think about it, I think almost half of my female friends game in one way or another ... not that far off from my male friends.

Thomas said...

Well, she could, I guess.

I'll be honest: what I find so laughable about this piece is not its hilarious tone of condescension ("All you have to do is find games that are dumb and easy enough for her!") but just as much the implication that you could change someone to like the same activities that you do.

But you know, on both sides, being in a relationship does not mean that you automatically share each other's obsessions. My girlfriend happens to like sitting down infrequently with her DS or her PS2. That's great. Yet we have very different taste in movies. So I watch horror flicks when she's not around, and she watches melodramas and romantic comedies when I'm doing something else. It's almost like we understand that we're different people--and even find that attractive about each other!

Not all of my relationships have been with people who game (not gamers, note--I'm trying not to frame them as summed up by one activity). If someone had a serious problem with my hobbies, be they electronic or musical or whatever, it probably wouldn't get very far anyway. But I don't expect hivethink.

You know, once upon a time I was talking to an aquaintance about my pet hamster, which was a replacement for another (deceased) hamster. I remarked that I had considered a rat, but Belle didn't care for them. You should have gotten the rat! said the aquaintance (herself a rodent-owner).

I understand the sentiment, I said, but it was either the rat or the girlfriend, and I think I made the right choice.

But think of all of the advantages that the rat has, she said.

Honey, I replied, there are some things that the rat just won't do.


...I don't know if that story is completely relevant, but I've been dying to tell it all day.