Reliable Source: Being a Gamer-Gurrrl is hard.

[Susan Arendt]

Actually, that's just the troll in me. Hello, senior editor!

Last GameStop visit with staff chick:

"Does this Lunar game have the same translation as the previous one?"

"Oh I looooved that game!"

"You PLAYED the original Lunar? With the Working Designs translation?"

"Well, I mean my brother loved that game."

"Eh, ring it up. Nice talking to ya."

At least she was honest.

Now, to be even more fair, I think a lot of women have gotten into the videogameosphere simply because that's where all the non-violent smarter guys are. My tolerance for such things is based on whether they actually are Annarchy, or that gamer chick in the winning Escapist webcomic contest(all the gamer chicks with both pretty appearance and actual gaming chops seem to be in webcomics written by men,) or whether they're someone not on the high end of the attractive scale who saw a male field and used feminism as a pretext for breaking in so they could be queen of the beta males.

And no, not all men are like me. But more are becoming like me every day.

True story from my own personal experience:

I'm at a game show, poring over the vendors tables. One of them has some truly gorgeous Saturn and PSOne import stuff. I'm talking mint, just utterly drool-worthy. I, naturally, begin drooling, wishing I had the ready cash to pick up Vib Ribbon, Harmful Park and Ai Cho Aniki. (To be fair, the Vib Ribbon was a re-issue, so that one wasn't quite as high up on my WANT list.) So as I'm freaking out over these lovelies, the vendor says to me, "Wow, you have great taste in games for a gi-..."

Yes, a lot of girls don the "gamer" mantle to get attention. But assuming everyone with breasts who claims to love games is faking it is just plain silly.

 

[John Funk]

And no, not all men are like me. But more are becoming like me every day.

Chauvinistic tools?

??????

 

[Daveman]

pretty much "boobs or gtfo..." lol

I can't believe they didn't check that. I mean surely you could have webcam chatted or something?

 

[Marion Cox]

I can't believe they didn't check that. I mean surely you could have webcam chatted or something?

I'm not that kind of girl.

 

[Daveman]

I can't believe they didn't check that. I mean surely you could have webcam chatted or something?

I'm not that kind of girl.

Well yes, evidently.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

*trimmed for length*

Wow.

Look, no disrespect meant, but you clearly have a lot of baggage about relationships and you're so wrapped up in it that you don't seem to realise just how toxic these attitudes are. I'm not a psychiatrist, but even I can see that you need to calm the hell down.

 

[Art_Vandalay]

Is it wrong that i was at a party last weekend where a girl (grrl?) was playing super mario bros 3 like her life depended on it and i found her oddly 100x more attractive all the sudden? I mean, who even remembers where all those hidden 1-ups and mushrooms are?! This girl! HOT!

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

No, it's simply a stereotype usually proven true. I further posit, based on experience, that the more into videogame arcana a woman is, the less feminine she is. Usually, unless her father or brother taught her all about such things from a young age, the number of truly videogame-loving chicks who are also hot is vanishingly small.[sup][Citation Needed [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/03/38-percent-of-g/]][/sup] (Just like the number of realistically feminine women who also love hunting, fishing, physics, assembly language, sailing, Square RPGs by Yasumi Matsuno instead of Tetsuya Nomura, and anything that involves hard-core analysis, long and arduous searches for forgotten content, extremely difficult mastery, and a fuck-ton of work guaranteed to go unknown and unappreciated by all but a few, and you'll usually find a 95% or better male-to-female ratio. You'll also find the people who do pretty much all the work necessary to run the goddamn modern world, but I digress.)

I begin to wonder where you systematic hatred of women stems from. Paying even the most minute of attentions to your post finds that every point, whether it's discussing the relative gender-knowledge of either sex, or even the digression of points from one thought to an unrelated other.

The fact of the matter is there's an inverse example for every one of yours. Your example isolates that women break their vows at a high rate, whereas men more often have sexual thoughts, engage in extramarital affairs, and are more likely in general to participate in what most would refer to as "immoral acts." For every example of a ditz at GameStop, I can provide a jock who can't recommend beyond Halo 3, Modern Warfare, and the latest incarnation of whichever sports game they favor. You mention that women are less likely to be "female and hot." Shall I ask the inverse, what percentage of male gamers are stereotypically attractive?

On that topic, it's funny how Google [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=h24&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Sexiest+Male+Gamers] defaults to "Sexiest Male Tennis players" when asked. But tacking a wonderful "Fe" [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=v24&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Sexiest+FeMale+Gamers] to the front of the previous search is not only more on-point, but even has YouTube links. Spiffy.

Even rolling my eyes and avoiding sexism, the problem with any possible discussion of this sort is that it's becoming too epidemic to quantify persons by their sex rather than the fact that they're persons. I don't treat "grrl gamers" differently, because they aren't. They wake up in beds, put pants on one leg at a time, and they have two hands, and eight fingers, with which to hold the controller. If they want to make a big deal out of being female, then they're not "another dumbass girl gamer." That just makes them "another dumbass." Further modifiers are unnecessary.

Either way, I politely disagree with Funk. You're not "another chauvanist dumbass." You're just a dumbass.

 

[Flight]

Nice article. It somewhat reminds me of getting hired at a gaming store, where the district manager informed me that a woman with short hair didn't - and couldn't - look professional.

Yeah.

 

[ethaninja]

Haha very awesome.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

*another trim*

I didn't say you had problems, I said you had baggage - which you clearly do - baggage that you've turned into a crusade.

I'm not going to try and argue with you; you wear your issues on your sleeve, and you've invested a lot more time into this than I have. I just think its sad that you've gotten yourself in such a state.

Oh, and just so you know, Reliable Source is fictional.

 

[Labyrinth]

Women crave assholes much more than nice guys, sad to say. Females measure attractiveness in men less by appearance and much more by social dominance, with material provider possibility a distant second.

Hang on, you're trying to tell a website with women on it how we find people attractive? As much as I hate to use the line, Honey, you're doin' it wrong. We know what we find attractive and for all the women I know, it's not the Alpha Males.

Oh sorry, I forgot, you're a Nice Guy[sub]TM[/sub]. You naturally have all the knowledge and information about female sexual instincts. Bleh.

There are very good reasons that women don't go for Nice Guy[sub]TM[/sub]. Let's start with the manipulative tendencies. It seems a common tactic among Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub] to befriend women, getting their sympathy about how he's had no luck with romance, and then when he tries to advance the relationship she isn't interested because he kicked it off as a friend. Yes, the Friend Zone exists, and Nice Guys set up their own camps in it. Next up, Nice Guy[sub]TM[/sub] hate women. Oh yes, there's a fundamental misogyny in the Nice Guy[sub]TM[/sub] method, the constant bitching about how women mistreat them, the declarations that they know what women like. But nooooo, the woman they're telling this to is different. She's not a *****, or a slut, like the other women. She's special.

Expecting women to date men who behave like this is like expecting men to date female supremacists just because said potential date turns around and goes "but you're not like those men, you're nice."

A third reason is because many women have dated Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub] before, and putting up with that kind of emotional abuse and bullshit once is by far enough.

The reason that some women go for arseholes is because they're like Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub], without the wallowing in self pity. And they're more straight forward about it. Personally I wouldn't touch either with anything but a 10-foot-pole made of spikes and poison. Women don't go for Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub] because of the way that those Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub] behave, not because women are all ganged up to deprive them of sex.

I know very few people who date arseholes for long, and it's exceptionally rare that they take seconds from the same group. And no, being attractive to women or having a girlfriend does not make someone an arsehole. There are a lot of men outside the Emotional Manipulator continuum of Arseholes and Nice Guys[sub]TM[/sub]. They're far better people.

 

[Sosa Star]

I greatly enjoyed the article and Mr Epotker: Die in a fire.

I play games, have been called attractive by all of my boyfriends, and have never acted in any of the ways you claim female gamers do. I like games, and I have a large number of other gaming friends (females no less) who work in retail selling *gasp* games! And we do well, and we know what we're talking about, we may not be elitests like you were aluding to with your comment about the female retail clerk but come to my or any of my friends stores and we'll be happy to discuss games.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Usually, unless her father or brother taught her all about such things from a young age, the number of truly videogame-loving chicks who are also hot is vanishingly small.

Because everything else I could say about everything else you've said has already been said by Nuke, Nil or Lab, I'll just say this:

I beg to differ. :}

 

[Danpascooch]

Flawlessly brilliant as always, I always enjoy hearing about your psychotic dad