That’s what my friend Zulie said when we caught up. She was talking about actual video games, and how they helped her relax during the beautiful but tough adjustment of being a new mom.
Zulie’s husband got her into video games a few years into their relationship. So did I with my fiancée. “How do you just run through this maze in one go?!” the latter sometimes asks me. Zulie, too, said she sometimes struggled more with navigating using a controller than her husband. I gave both the same response: “Just 30 years of playing video games.”
If you’ve done something since you were eight years old, of course you’ll have a level of familiarity with it that’s hard to beat. A lifelong swimmer can easily adjust to any water environment. A voracious reader may navigate a new library with ease. And long-time gamers will usually pick up the mechanics of the latest title rather quickly. The question is, as always: What is it for?
I never set out to be a professional gamer, and it’s unlikely I will from here on out. My partner also isn’t trying to win any esports trophies. The point is to have fun, learn, and relax. That’s why, as we discovered, Zulie and I both love cooperative games and have played several of the same ones. She recommended a puzzle-solving title I’d love to try. I can see my fiancée and I now: Squeezing our brains, staring at the screen, discussing the solution, and laughing about how long it took us to find an obvious answer.
It’s nice to be good at something—perhaps especially if you didn’t particularly grit your teeth to get there—but remember: If you’re having fun, you are winning the video game, and that’s one of the few prizes in life that actually counts.
