Angry rant time. Buckle up.

What’s with the gaming guys? Asks a recent article by a Sydney Morning Herald columnist. With hands on hips, and a gosh, oh shucks demeanour, the journalist wonders aloud just what’s up with these crazy men who game on Saturday night and on the train with their phones and what not. Don’t they know they’re missing out on magical, fulfilling activities like socialising and passionate romances?

Gee whiz, those gamer guys and their games. When will they learn?

Are we not done with these types of articles? Have we not seen enough of these ridiculous, forehead slapping, nose bridge pinching generalisations that all gamers are 20 something single heterosexual males, or that somehow the popularity of video games is costing pub owners precious clientele, or potential suitors from socialite young women. It’s as if all the men have gone to war but the war is in their living room or (as it’s subtly hinted in the popular perpetual manchild theory, which I despise) their parent's living room.

After all, that’s your experience, right? Aren't men playing games every evening instead of partaking in the delicate social rituals of yester year. The author has sources for her article too, oh you bet. A british male model once said playing video games makes him shiftless. Holy shit, I knew my modeling career would have taken off if I wasn’t up late playing Skyrim. That could be my pants bulge-adorning billboard right now rather than David Beckham's.

There's more evidenciary material, she also has a male friend who likes to zone out after work by playing games and makes the logical leap that zoning out equates to spiritual experience which equates to churches which equates to community which equates to socialising. Perhaps he’d enjoy zoning out after work more if he did it surrounded by people trying to make small talk. Gosh I know I’m dying to stand around talking bullshit with strangers after ten hours of work.

The overall tone of the piece claims to be an open call for discussion but the language is a withering put down of people who game. Games are referred to as time wasting, and people who would rather game than socialise are described as dull boys. These are not descriptors used by someone who wants to have a conversation; these are the words of someone who hums quietly waiting for their turn to talk so they can offer a more valuable opinion.

The article does request we share, get a conversation going, if our feeble communication impaired minds can handle it. Well bully, I'm game. So, let me tell you what I’m really sick off:

• I’m sick of being told that games are a time waster and yet reading a book or watching TV is not.
• I’m sick of hearing how boys aren’t becoming men because they play games.
• I’m sick of hearing that people who game do so in lieu of some other desperately important activity.
• I’m sick of articles like this one that can never, ever make it all the way to the bed without sneaking in the word basement somewhere (We live in Australia! We don’t even have fucking basements!).
• I’m sick of gaming being described as a hobby for young men.  My daughter is also sick of this.
• I’m sick of journalists openly acknowledging they have no knowledge of gaming and using that caveat as an excuse to do no actual research and instead splurt mental diarrhoea all over a page and getting paid for it.
• I’m sick of getting told gaming makes me a worse person but standing in a group of people I hardly know and drinking alcohol for four hours will somehow make me a better person.
• I'm sick of articles that seem to exist purely as inflammatory bait for page hits which I strongly suspect the article I have in mind may be (hence no link).

Here’s a news flash, some people don’t like socialising. Some people don’t like going out every night. Some people have a close group of friends they try and catch up with when they have the time. Some people have kids and work six days a week and don’t have the energy to go out and talk shit every Friday. Some people live in areas where the venue options are extremely limited. People are different, and just because a person's interests are different from what you perceive to be 'the norm' does not mean they are lesser or greater than your own.

Some of us just like to game madam. It doesn’t lessen us, it doesn’t rob us of social skills (that you claim to have but completely fail to apply in your writing, like say, civility) and it certainly doesn’t cost us interpersonal relationships.

Dare I suggest that if you find yourself speaking to dull minded men, the linking factor may not be video games, it may be that they’re being forced to listen to you.