My Secret Identity as a Video Game Nerd

When I met my husband in Iraq 6&1/2 years ago, I was not someone who played video games at all. Growing up, my sister and I had a Nintendo and years later a PlayStation. I also had a GameBoy when they first came out - yes, the big brick one! Most of these systems I hardly played myself, usually my dad or my sister played on them while I would prefer to read a book or watch TV. My husband on the other hand, grew up playing video games. He had more systems than I care to name. He and his siblings and friends would spend hours playing video games, and the amount of time played didn't change as he grew older. After we met, he tried to get me to play games with him, and sometimes I would, but I would never call myself a gamer.

After we got married in 2004 and we moved from North Carolina to Arizona, I was feeling very lonely since I was so far away from my family and had no friends. One of the hubby's friends kept talking about how Halo 2 was coming out. I had played the first Halo once at a friends house and actually liked it a lot. My husband asked me if I was going to get Halo 2, but I of course said no, I didn't play video games afterall. The day the game was released, I had this sudden urge to go buy it - and I did. I became so hooked on this game, it's not even funny. I would play it for hours when my husband was at work. This was around the time when XBox Live first came out, and I found myself making friends with these people on a game. They gave me companionship when I felt so alone and without friends.

A few months later, my husbands coworker introduced him to a new game - only this one wasn't a console game, it was a MMO (mass multiplayer online) game for the PC called World of Warcraft, or WoW for short. My husband was often play this game while I would play Halo 2 -talk about a couple of nerds! He tried relentlessly to get me to play this game too, but I had no desire. I thought it looked confusing with a million buttons. But one day he convinced me to sit down and watch him play. That lead to me making my own character and learning how to play. Again, I was hooked. When my husband deployed a few months later, WoW, school, and XBox Live kept me occupied, since we had again moved and I had no friends.

It's so funny to me that I play video games, especially since I used to hate them. In fact, it's killing me that we don't have our XBox right now and Halo 3: ODST comes out soon. I hate that I don't have my desktop and I have to play WoW on this not-made-for-games laptop. So yes, it's true. I am a girl gamer - and I never thought I would be.