A guy raged at me for dating a jock when I’m a gamer girl
Heads up: I just wanna rant.
I’ve been a gamer all my life. I’m (unfortunately) used to the toxic attitude that can occur around women who play games. But I encountered something that just hit different.
I’ve been going to a group IRL to meet more gamers and anime fans. I was cautiously optimistic and started getting especially close to Mark – we play the same games, watch the same anime, and I was so happy to make another geeky friend! Everything was going great, but then he started making comments like how he “wished he could find a gamer girl to date”, or that I look like someone out of one of his favorite animes.
So I started mentioning my boyfriend more. At first, Mark wasn’t weird about it at all, which I took as a good sign. I wasn’t suddenly dropped, like his only interest in me was to date me. We still got along.
Mark started asking me questions about my boyfriend, and that’s when it started to go downhill.
“How’d you meet another gamer guy?” I say my boyfriend isn’t geeky at all, and we met on a dating app.
“What does your boyfriend think about you spending so much time gaming? Does it affect your relationship?” He doesn’t care. I do my thing, he does his thing, so while I game, he works out.
“Your boyfriend never games with you or watches anime with you?” No, he’s not a gamer at all. He’s never played a game with me. Never watched anime with me.
It all came to a head when Mark saw my boyfriend. My boyfriend is really really muscular.
Mark started saying things about how it’s such a shame that a gamer girl like me turned out to be “just like the other shallow girls”, and berating me for dating some “jock” instead of someone who will respect my hobbies and participate in them with me. Why wouldn’t I want to date a gamer guy instead? The best part was he waited until my bf left before ripping into me.
I just feel like he’s not treated like a whole person and fetishizing me as some gamer girl. I feel like there’s a weird sort of possessiveness to it as well? Like just because I’m geeky I have to be interested in other geeky guys? Plus, what’s wrong with my boyfriend being a gym rat? Mark really looks down on that and thinks my boyfriend is a jerk and that he was “neglecting” me. My bf doesn’t have to game with me to respect my hobby! And just because he’s muscular doesn’t mean I’m shallow.
This isn’t the first time a gamer guy has insinuated that since I’m a gamer girl I should be interested in gamer guys. This isn’t the first time a gamer guy has reacted negatively and looked down on my boyfriend for working out instead of gaming.
I just hate this whole “nerd vs jock” dichotomy. Why is it even a thing? It‘s so immature – we’re not in some high school movie! People should’ve ditched that mentality by now. I don’t get it.
I’m just so tired of crap like this.