How to Avoid ‘Spouse Aggro’

So how do you avoid critical hits from a fire-breathing significant other while playing your favorite MMO?  Ask the experts.

Master Johnathan and I game. He games waaay more than I do, but when possible we game together. We don't play MMOs (like Mistress Niki and Master James) but any game we can network together at home (LAN Party!), such as Borderlands, we try. So we figured, same diff, what advice would they have for us?

The panel was comprised of a husband and his wife (she's really cool she writes for gaming magazines for a living) and another man who does game but his wife does not. It was the first time they had had this panel so it was a bit of an experiment. It turned out not only to be informative for couples who game together but those where one does and one doesn't or how to handle gaming matters with room-mates, family members or co-workers.

One question came from a girl who gamed but her boyfriend did not. She said she was fine with that but that he would always seem to want to "spend time with her" (for you slow people that means sex) right when she was in the middle of a Raid.  (Honey, that's nice,  but I've got to help heal the tank, or the Dragon will ROAST us!) The woman on the panel responded "Dump him. He's being passive aggressive. He's doing it on purpose."   Anyone who can't respect your need to raid, can't respect YOU. 

Another person said he wanted to try to get his wife to understand about gaming but she didn't understand why he was so interested. The panels' response was to have her play the games that are on Facebook. As one panelist said "Those games are like crack for baby gamers." Once you get her hooked then you can ease her into the other things.

The panelist whose wife didn't game, told the crowd, to their amusement, that "If you want your partner to share in your hobbies, like gaming,  you'll have to share in THEIR hobbies as well.   Even if it's mind-numbingly boring, like a "Dancing-With-The-Stars"  marathon!  Maybe then you'll know how they feel when you're explaining all the advantages of the new gear you just picked up.   And for the record,  yes their eyes ACTUALLY glaze over."  :-)

There was a girl whose mother wanted to play WOW with her but her mother was so bad at it, that the girl was embarrassed to take her on campaigns with her and her regular group. The suggestion was to take her out at other times, and other places and bribe friends to go with the two of you and just watch mom, face plant around until she gets better, or gives up.   Remember we weren't all born to be epic.

The married couple had the issue that both of their computer systems were in the same room, like us. And like me she also has a tendency to yell at the computer screen when something isn't working like she wants. Her husband( because men like to solve problems ) decided to solve one of her problems by stepping on a person in the Guild that his wife was complaining about because he was the Guild Master. I explained that I had similar issues with men wanting to fix problems, and not just let us vent,  and what was her solution while I'm pointing to Master Johnathan. So the entire audience had to turn and stare at Johnathan while the panel explained to him about the differences in men and women gaming. I think it's the only time I've seen his ears go such a flattering red.

But of course the most important thing I learned was the use of some new vocabulary words and phrases. After much discussion with Kevin and Darckhild later we decided that the first phrase "Douche Canoe" was meant to be used as a derogatory noun.  It is used like:  "I can't believe that Bill was being such a "Douche Canoe", just because we gave the Epic Gear to Emily!"  The second phrase, TwatWaffle,  even though it is a noun, was most decidedly better used as a verb. To use in a sentence as a verb:   "Would you stop TwatWaffling around and just KILL IT ALREADY!?!?!"  Finally there was "drama llama", which is an expression for a person for whom every action invokes drama,  and they seem not to notice,  unlike the "drama queen" who needs to be the center of attention in the drama.  The "Drama Llama"  generates drama, and watches it unfold around them.