A lot of girls become involved in gaming as the gamer’s girlfriend. I cannot tell you how many “girlfriend healer”s I met while I was LARPing. Show of hands – how many of you girls were inducted as a girlfriend?
I came into it gradually, DnD with a cousin at an early age, then later in high school, comics, then painting figures, then being invited to the gaming club and I found miniature gaming that way. However the DnD thing, I did get invited by a guy in my science class totally out of the blue.
Which segues us into my article’s meat. I think a lot of what runs most girls away, or at least discourages them, from gaming geekery is that it can be so overwhelming! There are SO many genres, then multiple games in each, then multiple armies in each game in some cases. As a game store owner I’ve seen the information overload happen before and witnessed the moment that eyes glaze over and we’ve lost another potential geek. It can happen with anything you are passionate about though.
It does go both ways too! I will admit that I’ve been the bad girl in that respect at least once, having a partner ask about my hobby, then gushing on and on seemingly endlessly. I’ve learned though, and while I still have an overabundance of passion, I have learned temperance in my old age.
So this is, at least partially, the core of what we are about! We are your sisters. Your oracles. We’ve been there and come back alive. If you have questions, or just need another girl to vent to, we are here.
We have always been here.
God I cannot even tell you how many MMO healers I have played, I am rather good at it. It does sometimes gets old though.
I play a Priest in World of Warcraft, and although I can and do heal, I didn’t start out in that role because I was someone’s girlfriend. Buuuut because I am a healer, and a girl, people assume I am a healer girlfriend. Automatically. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “so, when did your boyfriend get you to play?”
I heard or read somewhere once regarding girls on WoW: you suck. You can’t play. You’re here for questing. Maybe you can heal – maybe. You can’t dps, unless you prove it by being the top dps in a raid. Not close – but absolutely on top. And you definitely can’t tank – even if I see it with my own eyes.
I know I’ve heard that ‘gamer girlfriend’ trope so many times. But for me, gaming has really been a life long passion. And I picked up the role playing game habit long before I started dating, so I certainly didn’t start out as ‘the gaming girlfriend’ 🙂
I do have a tendency to play the support/healer roles… but that’s because it is what I enjoy most out of games. Still sometimes people make that female+healer=someone’s girlfriend who got roped into the game. I’m not sure what’s more offensive to me though… that assumption, or the people who say I can’t really be a girl because I like games on my own…