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!
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I’m 45. I spent the weekend playing video games with my 43-year-old girlfriend and her nephew. When we thought she had COVID I bought a couple games that were online multiplayer so we could play together while she was isolated.
You just need to find the right people for you. Put “I love video games” in your Tinder profile, and this will weed out people who think that’s for kids. Put yourself out there as you are, and it will attract the people who like you for who you are.
As someone born after 1986 I would consider it weird that there could be an age at which I wouldn’t play games. Just do whatever you enjoy
Yeah it doesn’t seem like an age cutoff so much as a generational cutoff. People born in the 1950s obviously didn’t grow up with arcades and consoles, so few of them would pick up the hobby later in life. Someone born in the mid 1970s like OP would be coming of age right as consoles and PC gaming were hitting the scene so more of that generation would have gamed as kids but still not an overwhelming amount like kids today.
As far as OPs date’s go, they’re probably just envisioning the stereotypical guy who is addicted to gaming and ignores other responsibilities even though that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps he should frame it in a different way like pointing out how he bonds with his kids over them if it’s an issue or just ignore it all together. My wife and I are late 30s and she doesn’t play games outside of a small amount Animal Crossing but she doesn’t care that I enjoy them and I have no plans on quitting as I get older.
This is exactly what I say, that I bond with my son over video games. He is 6.5 now and I am 42…I never want to stop playing games, but I do say that after having a kid I have a lot less time to actually sit down and play.
Nah. If you enjoy it, and your kids like spending time with you gaming, then who cares?
Life is too short and kids grow up too fast to care what some grumpy old people who wouldn’t know fun if it hit them in the head will say about what you enjoy.
It’s not a question of age, but of culture. Video game are no longer niche stuff for a handful of nerds. It’s a huge industry, like music or cinema.
People who say that games are childish are just trying to hide their ignorance.
I’m a 47-year-old female gamer.
I’m with you—I’m not going to allow peer pressure to get to me, but it’s obvious that people believe it’s childish. Fuck 'em. I think it’s a better hobby than mindlessly watching TV, for sure.
With video games you participate in the development of the story at least
It might be an age thing - I’m 32, game as a hobby, and work in software. 80% of my coworkers play games to some extent, and most are in their twenties to mid thirties.
But when I used to work in healthcare, I think only a few of my coworkers shared the hobby.
Generally, I think the younger the generation is, the more acceptable and “normal” gaming is. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s definitely more common.
Edit: I’d just be yourself and do as you like. There’s definitely people out there who share your hobby. Some of the older members of a long-standing guild I’m a part of are in their 50’s or retired. I will say that the gender ratio skews mostly male for older gamers though. The women I know who are interested in games are all sub 40 (this is just a personal observation, your results may vary)
Thanks for the observations, I think you’re right it’s generational.
to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema.
You should be grateful for them filtering themselves out of your dating pool so quickly. Not all red flags are that obvious.
I’m a 51 year old woman who plays video games (including ESO, PC/EU). We exist. If there is some sort of arbitrary cutoff age when I’m supposed to stop gaming, I will be steadfastly ignoring that “rule”, if I haven’t already.
“what is the age cut off for socially acceptable fun having” is what I read. Do what you enjoy and anyone saying you shouldn’t do X, or you are too old to do Y aren’t the type of people I associate with. Just turned 30 and I never plan to stop.
Same with music too. Some people just don’t ever branch out to listen to new genres and keep listening to the oldies they did. Being open to new things instead of staying within the bubble of what peer groups says is acceptable seems the way to go to not become stagnant losing touch with what is going on in the world.
That’s a really interesting point about music and culture. Do you want to come along for the ride or did you get to your teens and cry “hold, enough”?
I think from Gen X onwards it just gets more and more common.
Also, people will say “I don’t play computer/video games” and then spend hours on Candy Crush or whatever.
Ooh, interesting point about Candy Crush, I hadn’t thought about that. Mobile games are the socially acceptable face of gaming!
i’m 21, it wouldn’t be weird if you were gaming at 77, let alone 47 lol
maybe it’s not intergenerational :p
Yup. I’ll stop playing video games when I die or society collapses.
Fuck that… if society collapses, I’ll still be playing video games. Only need a small solar cell to keep the 3DS topped up.
No such thing as a cut off age! I guess it’s down to personal preferences and you may find people who are into video games well into their seventies. I can definitely see my husband and myself playing MMOs in a retirement home 😂.
If the people you’re matching up with judge you for having a hobby which is no different than, say, watching TV series on Netflix, maybe you need to weed them out.
Yeah, this exactly. Use it as an opportunity to realise you’re not on the same page as this person and that’s fine. Better to be picky, imo. Live your best single life, only choose a partner who chooses all of you too.
There’s a huge self-selection bias in action here… Subscribe to gaming sub, find gamers haha.
Just be yourself dude. If the ladies don’t grok it, just let it slide. But you do need to find commonalities if you’re dating. So don’t bore them to tears about gaming if they don’t care – find something else in common to talk about. If they judge you, however, find someone else.
Do what you enjoy, I’m nearly 30 and I plan to game until some pries this mouse and keyboard or my controller from my cold dead hands! Have fun and don’t worry about it!
I think our generation will definitely have consoles set up in nursing homes when we are elderly. No doubt about it.
I have wildly diverse hobbies, so I usually manage to mention something that people around me find weird. Gaming is one of them, and since I am not just your age but also female, I have received tons of strange comments over the years. At least my being somewhat fluid in English isn’t making me stand out anymore!
I think computer-related activities are seen different by our age group since we didn’t exactly grow up with it, or at least most of us didn’t. I know I was already a teenager when my parents bought us kids a computer, and that one needed inputs in BASIC and was textbased only. And while several of my classmates had similar experiences plus parents who insisted this was useful to know for our futures (and boy, where they right!), most of us still preferred to spent our time elsewhere. I see the difference in my kids, who grew up with not only computers and related technology, but also the internet. My son occasionally played board games via an internet platform by the time he was five (under supervision, of course), and as such, video games are much more part of daily life for that generation.
In my eyes, the decades-long discussion on when to give your child his/her first mobile phone has similar roots: We were used to a slower pace of life, that as a child you carry a few coins so that you can call your parents from a pay phone in an emergency, and otherwise you had to be at home at a specified time. Play dates with school mates were discussed in person at school, and so forth. Our children are dealing with far faster pace, discussion with class mates only occasionally take place eye-to-eye, and their schedules have become much more complex and fluid. Also, they grow up knowing everybody and anybody carries a phone in their pocket, and of course they want the same. Technology is integrated into their lifes from the start, and that means gaming is far more acceptable as a pastime.
Very thoughtful response, thanks!